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LOUIS    PASTEUR 

(1822-1895) 


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LOUIS    PASTEUR 


BY 


ALBERT  KEIM  and  LOUIS  LUMET 

Translated  from  the  French  by 

FREDERIC  TABER  COOPER 


WITH  SEVEN   ILLUSTRATIONS   FROM  PHOTOGRAPHS 


'^^c 


NEW  YORK 

FREDERICK  A.  STOKES   COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 


54T!8 


31 
K4- 


Copyright,  1914,  by 
FREDERICK  A.  STOKES  COMPANY 


All  rights  reserved 


u 


April,  1914 


O'NEILL  LIBRARY 
BOSTON  COLLEGE 


(  4 


Frovi  the  lives  of  men  who  have  marked 
their  passage  with  a  trail  of  enduring  light,  let 
us  piously  gather,  for  the  benefit  of  posterity, 
every  detail,  down  to  the  slightest  words,  the 
slightest  acts  calculated  to  reveal  the  guiding 
principles  of  their  great  souls. 

PASTEUR. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER                                                                                                           *  PAGE 

I    A  Studious  Boyhood 1 

II    A  Laborious  and  Enthusiastic  Youth    .  16 

III  On  the  Road  to  Fame      ....  45 

IV  For  the  National  Wealth       ...  71 
V    The  Spirit  of  Patriotism  ....  101 

VI    The  Curative  Poison 114 

VII    The  Sovereignty  of  Genius      .        .        .  136 

VIII    Hydrophobia 161 

IX    The  Pasteur  Institute      ....  176 

X     The  Supreme  Homa(?e        ....  188 

XI    The  Last  Days  of  a  Great  Man      .        .  205 

Brief    Index    of    the    Principal    Names 

Cited 215 

Principal  Publications^  Articles^  Mono-. 

GRAPHS;  etc.;  of  Louis  Pasteur      .        ,  223 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


LOUIS  PASTEUR Frontispiece 

FACING 
PAGE 

PASTEUR'S  BIRTHPLACE 

The  house  on  the  Rue  des  Tanneurs,  at 
Dole,  in  which  Louis  Pasteur  was  born,  on 
December  27th,  1822,  in  a  modest  family  of 
the  laboring  class 20 

PASTEUR  AT  THE  AGE  OF  THIRTY 

In  1852,  the  great  scientist  was  appointed 
titular  professor  of  chemistry  at  Strasburg, 
where  he  conducted  a  number  of  researches 
in  ci-j^stalography.  To  the  left  is  one  of  the 
glass  globes  which  were  employed  in  certain 
celebrated  experiments  relating  to  spon- 
taneous generation 52 

VACCINATION  AGAINST  HYDROPHOBIA 

One  of  the  rooms  in  the  Institute,  in  which, 
thanks  to  Pasteur's  genius,  the  virus  of  one 
of  the  most  terrible  scourges  in  the  world  is 
rendered  impotent.  Through  this  discovery, 
Pasteur  is  enrolled  in  the  number  of  the 
great  benefactors  of  humanity  ...        84 


xii  ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING 
^  PAGE 

feMILE  DUCLAUX  (after  BORDES) 

The  favorite  disciple  of  the  great  scientist 
and  the  first  director  of  the  Institute  in  the 
Rue  Dutot,  who  collaborated  in  Pasteur's 
researches  and  carried  on  his  work      .         .       116 

TWO  OF  PASTEUR'S  GREAT  COLLABORA- 
TORS 

On  the  left:  Doctor  Roux,  director  of  the 
Pasteur  Institute,  and  inventor  of  the 
method  of  treating  diphtheria  by  a  serum 
obtained  from  horses.  On  the  right:  Doctor 
Metchnikoff,  celebrated  for  his  theory  of 
phagocytosis  and  his  works  on  the  intestinal 
flora .       148 

PASTEUR'S  TOMB 

It  is  in  the  Rue  Dutot,  beneath  the  princi- 
pal entrance  to  the  Pasteur  Institute,  in  a 
crypt  lined  with  marble,  that  one  of  the 
most  glorious  representatives  of  universal 
science  has  found  his  last  resting  place      ,       212 


LOUIS    PASTEUR 

(1822-1895) 


PASTEUR 

CHAPTER   I 

A  STUDIOUS   BOYHOOD 

LOUIS  PASTEUR  is  one  of  the  glories  of 
France,  and,  among  them  all,  the  one 
whose  light  shines  clearest  and  most  fertile  in 
results.  His  name  has  radiated  throughout  the 
world,  and  for  scientists  and  laymen  alike  it 
symbolises  that  spirit  of  humanity  which 
strove  to  succour  all  the  ills  of  his  fellow  men 
and  that  genius  for  invention  which  opened 
vast  new  horizons  to  the  researches  of  science. 
His  sovereignty  is  now  undisputed,  there  is  no 
nation  which  has  not  rendered  him  due  hom- 
age, and,  as  his  fame  has  widened,  it  has,  ac- 
cording to  his  own  desire,  increased  the  moral 
patrimony  and  the  intellectual  force  of  his  na- 
tive land. 


2  PASTEUR 

Louis  Pasteur  was  descended  from  one  of 
those  ancient  peasant  families  that  were  at- 
tached for  centuries  to  the  land  they  tilled,  and 
who  have  given  so  many  illustrious  sons  to 
France.  In  the  seventeenth  century  his  ances- 
tors were  still  serfs  of  the  soil,  in  Franche- 
Comte,  and  the  first  who  arose  from  servitude 
was  Louis  Pasteur's  great-grandfather,  Claude 
Etienne,  who,  having  abandoned  the  labour  of 
the  fields,  was  in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth 
century  a  tanner  at  Salins,  and  one  of  the  bour- 
geoisie of  that  town.  He  came  of  a  race  distin- 
guished for  serious-mindedness  and  aptitude 
for  toil,  positive  qualities  which  produced  ar- 
tizans  solicitous  of  the  good  renown  of  their 
calling,  and  gifts  of  imagination  which  urged 
them  on  to  raise  themselves  above  their  en- 
vironment by  a  superior  education. 

Louis  Pasteur's  father,  Jean  Joseph,  an  or- 
phan from  early  childhood,  was  born  to  Jean 
Henri,  the  third  son  of  Claude  Etienne,  on  the 
16th  of  March,  1791,  in  the  midst  of  the  Revo- 
lution.   He  was  reared  by  his  grandmother,  but 


A  STUDIOUS   BOYHOOD  3 

was  taken  from  her  by  the  conscription  in  1811, 
and,  having  been  assigned  to  the  3rd  regiment 
of  the  hne,  he  served  throughout  the  war  in 
Spain  in  the  army  of  the  Emperor.  He  made 
a  good  soldier,  well  disciplined  and  intelHgent, 
and  he  won  his  first  promotions  slowly,  through 
good  conduct  and  calm  courage:  corporal  in 
1812,  quartermaster  in  1813,  sergeant-major 
and  Chevalier  of  the  Legion  of  Honour  in  1814. 
Returning  from  Spain,  he  was  one  of  those  who 
took  part  in  that  immortal  campaign  of  France, 
in  which  Napoleon  expended  all  the  marvellous 
resources  of  his  military  genius  to  save  the 
country  from  invasion,  yet  was  powerless  in  the 
face  of  adverse  fortune. 

After  the  Emperor's  abdication  Jean  Joseph 
Pasteur  was  placed  on  the  retired  list  by  the 
new  government.  He  returned  to  Salins  to  re- 
sume his  trade  of  tanner,  and  shortly  after- 
wards he  married  Jeanne  Etiennette  Roqui,  of 
an  ancient  family  of  humble  station.  The  bare 
problem  of  living  was  a  difficult  one,  for  the 
bride  had  brought  nothing  to  their  union  ex- 


4  PASTEUR 

cept  her  cheerfulness,  her  gentle  disposition 
and  her  two  industrious  arms.  Accordingly  it 
was  not  long  before  Joseph  Pasteur  decided  to 
try  his  luck  by  removing  to  Dole,  and  there  he 
established  himself  in  a  modest  little  house  in 
the  Rue  des  Tanneurs.  It  was  there  that  Louis 
Pasteur  was  born  on  the  27th  of  December, 
1822. 

The  family  continued  in  straitened  circum- 
stances, in  spite  of  long  and  weary  toil.  He  re- 
moved, a  second  time,  to  Marnoz,  and  at  last 
made  his  permanent  home  at  Arbois.  The  tan- 
nery was  situated  near  a  stream,  the  Cuisance, 
in  the  low-lying  town,  surrounded  by  pic- 
turesque slopes  of  country-side ;  and  it  was  here 
in  an  austere  dwelling,  in  the  presence  of  living 
examples  of  energy  and  courage,  and  under  the 
influence  of  a  nature  that  was  alternately  gay 
and  melancholy,  that  Louis  Pasteur  received 
his  first  impressions. 

The  little  town  of  Arbois  bears  a  coat  of  arms 
that  might  well  have  applied  to  the  man  who 
was  not  only  a  great  scientist  but  also  a  bene- 


A   STUDIOUS   BOYHOOD  5 

factor  of  humanity :  on  a  field  azure,  a  pelican 
or  plucking  her  breast  above  her  young,  sup- 
ported on  a  nest  or,  with  drops  of  blood  gules. 
Its  population,  consisting  of  a  few  bourgeois 
families,  and  chiefly  of  vine-growers  and  ar- 
tizans,  are  rough  in  manner  and  at  the  same 
time  proud.  They  convey  an  impression  of 
stalwart  courage  and  rugged  honesty.  Joseph 
Pasteur  numbered  among  them  several  chosen 
friends.  Dr.  Dumont,  retired  army  surgeon ;  M. 
Bousson  de  Mairet,  the  historian  of  Franche- 
Comte ;  M.  Romanet,  the  principal  of  the  high 
school,  and  a  few  others  besides  who  were  fre- 
quent visitors  at  the  tannery.  Young  Louis 
used  to  listen  to  their  conversations,  in  which 
duty,  industry  and  patriotism  were  exalted; 
and,  through  the  direct  influence  of  his  father, 
he  became  imbued  with  high  and  noble  senti- 
ments. 

While  still  very  young  he  was  sent  to  the  pri- 
mary school,  and  later  to  the  Arbois  college, 
where  he  began  his  classical  studies.  As  a  pu- 
pil, he  was  rather  slow,  and  gave  no  indication 


6  PASTEUR 

of  brilliant  qualities.  He  studied  diligently, 
but  without  enthusiasm,  and  at  times  he  would 
fall  into  long  reveries,  which  seemed  to  isolate 
him  from  the  outside  world.  When  he  was  not 
attending  his  classes  and  during  vacations,  he 
was  fond  of  playing  and  of  roaming  across 
country ;  but  he  avoided  all  brutal  games,  such 
as  destroying  nests  and  killing  birds.  For  he 
suffered  at  the  sight  of  any  kind  of  suffering, 
whether  of  man  or  beast. 

From  his  father,  who  was  a  reflective,  opin- 
ionated, yet  kind-hearted  man,  Louis  Pasteur 
inherited  a  strong  will,  not  yet  sure  of  itself,  but 
which  was  destined  later  on  to  become  the  dom- 
inant force  of  his  life;  a  prudent  judgment,  a 
practical  common  sense,  based  upon  experi- 
ence which  protected  him  from  hasty  conclu- 
sions ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  he  derived  from 
his  mother  the  secret  side,  so  to  speak,  of  his 
nature:  a  quivering  sensitiveness,  a  vivid  im- 
agination, an  intuitive  intelligence,  which  often 
revealed  to  him  the  hidden  mystery  of  things, 
through  swift,  vast  flashes  of  illumination :  also, 


A   STUDIOUS    BOYHOOD  7 

kindliness,  love  of  the  arts,  and  a  taste  for 
poetry. 

It  was  undoubtedly  in  obedience  to  these 
tendencies,  inherited  from  his  mother,  and 
which  belonged  rather  to  the  emotional  than 
to  the  intellectual  side  of  his  nature,  that 
among  all  the  subjects  taught  in  the  Arbois 
college  he  showed  no  preference  for  anything 
but  drawing  up  to  the  age  of  thirteen  years. 

Within  the  family  circle  he  was  regarded  as 
an  artist,  and  he  enjoyed  quite  a  little  local 
fame.  He  used  to  draw  crayon  portraits,  and 
that  of  his  mother,  done  with  a  free  hand  in 
pastel,  revealed  a  character  dependent  upon 
sincerity  and  truth.  But  the  alluring,  yet 
sometimes  hazardous,  fame  of  artists  was  not 
what  Joseph  Pasteur  desired  for  his  son;  ac- 
cording to  his  grave  conception  of  life,  his 
highest  ambition  was  to  see  him  in  the  assured 
position  of  a  professor.  For  the  simple  man  had 
a  great  respect  for  the  ability  to  teach,  and 
there  was  no  one  whom  he  placed  higher  than 


8  PASTEUR 

those  who  preside  over  the  unfolding  and  nur- 
turing of  young  minds. 

When  barely  sixteen  years  of  age  Louis  Pas- 
teur, who  at  this  time  was  applying  himself 
with  tireless  tenacity  to  the  pursuit  of  his  stud- 
ies, was  sent  to  Paris  for  the  purpose  of  being 
prepared  to  enter  the  Ecole  Normale.  This 
meant  a  sacrifice  on  the  part  of  the  family, 
which  had  been  augmented  to  the  extent  of 
two  young  daughters.  But  it  was  lightened  by 
the  concessions  made  by  the  director  of  the 
pension,  M.  Darbet,  a  compatriot  from 
Franche-Comte.  Louis  Pasteur  left  his  beloved 
little  town  of  Arbois  accompanied  by  one  of 
his  fellow  pupils,  Jules  Vercel,  in  October,  1838. 
But  no  sooner  had  he  reached  Paris  than  a 
sombre  melancholy  seized  him.  He  could  not 
forget  the  home  circle  he  had  left  behind  him; 
and  in  consequence  of  these  memories  that  kept 
him  awake  throughout  long  nights  he  fell  into 
a  state  of  languor  and  ill  health  that  rendered 
him  unfit  for  any  work. 

"Oh!  if  I  could  only  smell  the  odour  of  the 


A   STUDIOUS    BOYHOOD  9 

tannery,"  he  used  to  murmur  to  his  com- 
patriot, Jules  Vercel,  ''I  should  be  well  again!" 

Pasteur  always  retained  his  profound  love 
for  Arbois,  and  even  in  the  days  of  his  great- 
est fame  he  used  to  return  there  every  year  to 
pass  his  vacation. 

The  director  of  the  pension,  M.  Darbet, 
fearing  that  the  severe  attack  of  homesick- 
ness from  which  his  young  pupil  was  suf- 
fering might  have  a  disastrous  effect  upon  his 
health,  wrote  to  the  father,  and  the  latter,  re- 
gardless of  his  business,  hurried  to  his  son,  and 
promptly  brought  him  back  to  the  tannery. 

After  his  return  home  Louis  Pasteur  seems 
for  a  v/hile  to  have  been  in  an  unsettled  state, 
happy  to  be  back  again  with  his  family,  and 
yet  perhaps  secretly  ashamed  of  having  failed 
in  his  duty  by  not  staying  in  Paris.  In  this 
condition  it  was  his  emotional  side  which  pre- 
vailed for  the  time  being.  And,  while  he  con- 
tinued to  follow  the  courses  in  the  college  at 
Arbois,  he  returned  to  his  drawing  and  his  pas- 
tels with  passionate  interest.     He  made  nu- 


10  PASTEUR 

merous  portraits  of  his  friends  and  neighbours ; 
and  there  are  some  that  have  qualities  which 
reveal  a  true  artistic  talent:  the  mayor  of  Ar- 
bois,  M.  Pareau,  the  recorder  of  mortgages,  M. 
Blondeau,  some  young  girls,  some  old  men,  and 
one  nun. 

Meanwhile,  having  regained  his  courage,  as 
though  he  had,  once  for  all,  triumphed  over  the 
weakness  which  had  caused  him  to  hesitate  in 
his  path,  Louis  Pasteur  finished  his  course  in 
rhetoric  triumphantly.  But,  since  the  college 
at  Arbois  had  no  classes  in  philosophy,  the 
problem  was  once  more  raised  as  to  where  he 
should  continue,  his  studies.  The  Paris  experi- 
ment had  been  disastrous.  Accordingly,  Jo- 
seph Pasteur  decided  to  send  his  son  to  Be- 
sangon,  which  was  quite  near  and  which  he 
himself  visited  occasionally  for  business  rea- 
sons. 

It  is  from  this  period  that  we  may  date  Louis 
Pasteur's  incredible  capacity  for  work,  which 
enabled  him  to  endure  unlimited  fatigue,  and 
also  his  grave,  deep-seated,  invincible  strength 


A   STUDIOUS    BOYHOOD  11 

of  will  which  refused  ever  to  recognise  obsta- 
cles. A  manly  letter  written  to  his  father  and 
cited  by  M.  Vallery-Radot,  his  son-in-law,  in 
the  fine  work  which  the  latter  consecrated  to 
him,  La  Vie  de  Pasteur,  reveals  to  us  the  frame 
of  mind  in  which  he  pursued  his  course  in 
philosophy.  He  had  disowned  his  talent  for 
drawing,  and  scorned  the  reputation  of  por- 
trait painter  which  had  followed  him  to  Be- 
sanQon;  for  he  wrote,  ''None  of  this  leads  to 
the  Ecole  Normale.  I  would  rather  stand  at 
the  head  of  my  classes  than  receive  ten  thou- 
sand praises  flung  out  superficially  in  the  course 
of  current  conversation.  We  shall  see  each 
other  on  Sunday,  my  dear  papa,  for  Monday, 
if  I  am  not  mistaken,  will  be  the  day  of  the 
fair.  If  we  go  to  see  M.  Daunas  (his  profes- 
sor of  philosophy)  we  can  talk  to  him  about  the 
Ecole  Normale.  My  dear  sisters,  I  recommend 
to  you  once  again  to  be  industrious  and  to  love 
each  other.  When  once  we  have  acquired  the 
habit  of  work  we  can  no  longer  live  without  it. 
Besides,  work  is  the  thing  upon  which  every- 


12  PASTEUR 

thing  else  in  this  world  depends.  By  means 
of  knowledge  we  raise  ourselves  above  every- 
body else.  .  .  .  But  I  hope  that  you  do  not 
need  this  advice,  and  I  am  sure  that  every  day 
you  sacrifice  many  a  moment  to  studying  your 
gramm^ar.  Love  each  other  as  I  love  you,  while 
awaiting  the  happy  day  when  I  shall  be  admit- 
ted to  the  Ecole  Normale"  (January  26,  1840). 
There  we  have  the  v/hole  ambition  of  this 
young  philosopher.  He  admired  and  respected 
his  teachers,  and  he  dreamed  of  nothing  else 
than  to  become  a  professor  in  his  turn  and  ful- 
fil towards  others  that  fine  and  noble  duty  of 
enlightening  and  training  other  minds.  His  ap- 
plication to  his  studies  was  rewarded.  On  Au- 
gust 29th,  1840,  he  successfully  passed,  at 
BesanQon,  his  examinations  for  the  degree  of 
bachelor  of  letters.  This  was  his  first  degree, 
but  he  was  destined  to  follow  it  up  by  obtain- 
ing in  later  years  every  degree  that  the  Univer- 
sity has  within  its  gift ;  for  this  incarnate  spirit 
of  innovation,  this  revolutionary  genius,  so  to 
speak,  had  a  deep  respect  for  degrees  and  func- 


A   STUDIOUS    BOYHOOD  13 

tions  and  titles  which  give  an  assured  position 
in  society.  His  examination  was  not  especially 
brilliant,  but  he  received  good  marks  in  Greek, 
Latin,  philosophy  and  French  composition,  low 
marks  in  history  and  geography,  and  excellent 
ones  in  the  sciences.  His  dominant  qualities 
were  already  revealing  themselves  in  this  first 
examination.  Furthermore,  having  passed  his 
baccalaureate,  Louis  Pasteur,  whom  the  direc- 
tor of  the  school  had  taken  on  as  assistant  tu- 
tor— for  the  tannery  was  far  from  prospering — 
continued  to  pursue  special  courses  in  mathe- 
matics. 

This  precise  trend  given  to  his  studies,  which 
delivered  him  over  into  the  hands  of  science, 
in  no  way  prevented  him  from  appreciating 
literature  and  poetry.  This  was  the  reverse 
side  of  his  nature,  the  sentimental  and  dreamy 
side,  which  had  need  of  nourishment  and  which 
never  was  wholly  effaced  by  any  amount  of  ab- 
stract studies — studies  of  a  kind  that  we  should 
have  expected  to  find  most  distasteful  to  him. 
Louis  Pasteur  loved,  beyond  all  other  books, 


14  PASTEUR 

the  Essay  on  the  Art  of  Being  Happy,  by  Jo- 
seph Droz.  He  appreciated  the  honesty  of  its 
sentiments,  the  gentleness  of  its  philosophy 
and  the  kindliness  which  emanated  from  one 
and  all  of  its  aphorisms.  He  also  read  My 
Prisons,  by  Silvio  Pellico,  some  rather  dull  nov- 
els which  he  recommended  to  his  sisters,  and 
some  poetry.  He  had  a  friend  who  shared  his 
literary  enthusiasms,  Charles  Chappuis,  with 
whom  he  was  destined  throughout  life  to  enjoy 
a  more  than  brotherly  intimacy,  and  they  used 
to  work  themselves  to  the  highest  pitch  of  ex- 
altation by  reading  together  the  Meditations  of 
Lamartine.  Poetry  rested  Pasteur  after  the 
strain  of  mathematics,  and,  far  removed  from 
figures  and  calculations,  it  afforded  him  emo- 
tions so  delicate  that  sometimes  he  was  moved 
to  tears. 

Nevertheless,  Louis  Pasteur  was  by  no  means 
neglecting  his  scientific  studies  and  his  prepa- 
ration for  the  Ecole  Normale.  He  even  thought 
for  a  time  of  applying  for  admission  to  the 
Polytechnique,  but  he  renounced  this  idea,  in 


A   STUDIOUS    BOYHOOD  15 

order  not  to  scatter  his  efforts  too  widely.  On 
August  13,  1842,  he  was  passed,  at  Dijon,  as 
Bachelor  of  Mathematical  Sciences,  with  low 
notes  in  chemistry,  and  on  the  26th  of  the 
same  month,  in  the  competitive  examination 
for  the  Ecole  Normale,  he  obtained  fifteenth 
place  out  of  the  twenty-two  candidates  who 
were  declared  eligible  to  take  the  second  tests. 
Far  from  satisfied  with  this  last  result,  he  de- 
cided not  to  continue  in  the  competition,  but 
to  devote  another  year  to  preparation,  in  order 
to  make  a  brilliant  entry  into  this  great  school 
which  was  the  object  of  his  highest  ambitions. 
To  this  end  he  left  Besangon,  and,  strong  of 
purpose,  precociously  mature,  confident  that 
this  time  he  would  be  able  to  conquer  the  re- 
gret which  he  was  bound  to  feel  at  being  sepa- 
rated from  the  family  that  he  loved  so  ten- 
derly, he  once  more  set  his  face  towards  Paris, 
at  the  end  of  his  vacation  in  1842,  with  the 
firm  determination  to  fulfil  his  duty  towards 
himself  and  towards  science. 


CHAPTER   II 

A  LABORIOUS  AND  ENTHUSIASTIC  YOUTH 

HE  was  at  this  time  a  young  man  with  a 
grave  and  meditative  face,  but  under 
an  apparent  coldness  he  hid  an  ardent  and  en- 
thusiastic heart  and  an  imagination  ever  on 
the  alert.  Louis  Pasteur  feared  nothing  from 
the  dangers  of  Paris.  His  powerful  strength  of 
will  protected  him  from  pleasures  which  might 
otherwise  have  turned  him  from  his  path,  and 
he  was  glad  to  realise  how  easily  his  passionate 
love  of  work  enabled  him  to  dispense  with 
them. 

On  arriving  at  the  Pension  Barbet,  situated 
in  the  Impasse  des  Feuillantines,  he  once  more 
found  Chappuis,  the  confidential  friend  and 
faithful  companion  of  his  leisure  hours,  and  he 
mapped  out  his  daily  life  in  such  a  way  as  to 

16 


A   LABORIOUS   YOUTH  17 

extract  a  maximum  of  profit  from  the  employ- 
ment of  his  time.  He  roomed  with  a  few  com- 
rades not  far  from  the  Pension,  and  his  entire 
time  was  devoted  to  study.  Too  much  of  his 
time  to  suit  Chappuis,  who  would  have  liked  a 
greater  proportion  of  amusement,  and  too 
much  also,  to  suit  his  father,  who  was  anxious 
about  his  health. 

Louis  Pasteur's  habit  was  to  rise  in  the  morn- 
ing at  half  past  five,  for  he  had  to  tutor  certain 
pupils  of  M.  Barbet  from  six  o'clock  until 
seven,  for  he  had  been  admitted  to  the  Pension 
on  payment  of  only  one-third  of  the  usual  fee  ; 
then  he  attended  courses  at  the  Lycee  Saint- 
Louis,  went  to  the  Sorbonne  to  hear  the  lec- 
tures of  the  famous  chemist  Dumas,  who  af- 
forded himx  many  a  devout  thrill  when  he  spoke 
loftily  of  science  and  of  the  vast  horizons  that 
it  opens  to  the  human  eye.  He  returned  from 
these  inspiring  lessons,  trembling  with  emo- 
tion, burning  with  the  desire  to  mark  his  own 
trail  among  those  of  his  precursors,  to  be  one 
of  those  who  have  raised  a  corner  of  the  veil 


18  PASTEUR 

which  hides  nature's  secrets  from  us.  He  was 
in  such  haste  to  learn,  he  felt  such  need  of  in- 
cessant work,  that  on  the  days  of  freedom, 
Thursdays  and  Sundays,  he  used  to  shut  him- 
self up  in  the  libraries,  and,  whenever  he  con- 
sented to  take  a  walk  with  Chappuis,  it  was 
only  on  the  condition  that  they  should  discuss, 
as  they  walked,  some  question  of  literature  or 
philosophy. 

The  young  student's  resources  were  very 
slender,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  sympathy 
he  had  aroused  in  M.  Barbet  and  the  services 
he  had  rendered  him  had  caused  the  latter  to 
end  by  remitting  the  whole  of  the  usual  charge ; 
yet  he  had  sufficient  to  pay  for  his  pleasures. 
At  the  urgent  request  of  his  father  he  con- 
sented to  go  on  certain  Sundays  to  dine  at  the 
Palais  Royal,  where  the  sum  he  spent  was 
scarcely  ever  more  than  forty  sous!  And  the 
crowning  feature  of  this  great  treat  was  when 
Louis  Pasteur  allowed  himself  the  luxury  of  the 
theatre,  a  thing  which,  by  the  way,  occurred 


A   LABORIOUS   YOUTH  19 

only  four  times  during  the  whole  period  of  his 
studies. 

It  was  in  1843  that  he  achieved  the  height  of 
his  ambitions.  He  entered  the  Ecole  Normale, 
the  fourth  in  a  good  class,  and  he  was  so  eager 
to  breathe  the  air  of  the  famous  edifice  that  he 
cut  short  his  vacation  and  presented  himself 
several  days  before  the  date  of  opening.  His 
type  of  mind,  which  was  in  certain  respects 
monastic,  accommodated  itself  to  the  system 
of  the  Ecole  Normale ;  his  courage  was  redoub- 
led, and  he  not  only  assimilated  all  the  courses 
given,  but  already  began  to  make  certain  pri- 
vate researches.  He  had  a  natural  thirst  for 
fame,  he  glowed  with  enthusiasm  when  he  read 
the  lives  of  illustrious  men,  he  was  kindled  with 
the  ambition  to  imitate  them;  but  his  prefer- 
ence leaned  towards  those  who  were  benefac- 
tors and  whose  discoveries  were  useful  to  hu- 
manity. His  father  wrote  to  him  to  economise 
his  strength,  and  he  replied,  reassuring  him,  for 
the  profound  affection  that  he  bore  his  family 
never  wavered;  but  none  the  less  he  continued 


20  PASTEUR 

to  work  as  hard  as  ever.  Work,  work,  work 
was  destined  to  be  the  maxim  of  his  whole  ex- 
istence. 

While  a  student  in  the  Ecole  Normale  Louis 
Pasteur  continued  to  give  lessons  at  the  Pen- 
sion Barbet,  in  recognition  of  the  generous 
treatment  he  had  received  at  the  hands  of  its 
worthy  master ;  he  also  continued  to  attend  the 
lectures  of  Dumas  and  followed  him  with  ab- 
sorbed attention,  and  to  his  great  joy  he  was 
allowed  to  enter  the  laboratory  of  his  instruc- 
tor Barruel,  who  gave  him  much  practical  ad- 
vice. From  this  time  forward  the  general  de- 
velopment of  Louis  Pasteur  seems  to  have  been 
completed,  his  genius  was  revealed  under  a 
double  character  which  was  destined  to  assure 
the  immortality  of  his  works :  he  had  an  unlim- 
ited audacity  of  ideas,  his  intuitive  conceptions 
soared  to  the  outermost  boundaries  of  human 
thought,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  he  bound  him- 
self down,  in  his  experiments,  to  an  extremely 
rigorous  method  that  refused  to  take  count  of 
any  fact  that  had  not  been  strictly  verified. 


PASTEUR'S   BIRTHPLACE 
The  house  on  the  Rue  des  Tanneurs,  at  Dole,  in  which  Louis  Pasteur 
was  bora,  on  December  27th,  1822,  in  a  modest  family  of  the  laboring 

class. 


A   LABORIOUS   YOUTH  21 

While  still  a  student  he  already  felt  the  need 
of  proselytising;  he  wanted  to  disseminate  the 
science  which  he  was  acquiring  at  the  cost  of  so 
much  energy.  So,  in  addition  to  tutoring  the 
pupils  at  the  Pension  Barbet,  he  appointed 
himself  professor  to  his  own  family,  his  father 
and  sisters.  He  gave  them  problems  to  solve, 
he  expounded  scientific  theories  for  their  bene- 
fit, and  he  infused  into  all  this  correspondence 
the  ardour  of  a  young  apostle.  If  they  iU  un- 
derstood the  significance  of  his  problems,  and  if 
the  explanations  which  he  furnished  seemed 
too  difficult  to  be  grasped  by  minds  that  did  not 
have  the  advantage  of  a  scientific  training,  he 
would  encourage  them  affectionately,  and  point 
out  the  high  and  noble  necessity  of  constant 
effort.  It  was  a  debt  of  gratitude  that  he  was 
gladly  paying  to  his  family,  whose  sacrifices 
had  permitted  him  to  obtain  an  education,  and 
this  touching  role  of  the  distinguished  son  and 
brother  giving  instruction  from  a  distance  to 
his  aged  father  and  young  sisters  reveals  the 
bigness  of  his  heart. 


22  PASTEUR 

After  three  years  at  the  Eeole  Normale  Louis 
Pasteur  passed  his  examinations  for  his  degree 
in  physical  sciences  in  1846;  out  of  four  candi- 
dates four  were  passed,  among  whom  he  stood 
third,  with  no  special  distinction. 

What  was  the  young  graduate  goirig  to  do? 
Had  he  not  now  realised  his  most  cherished 
wish  in  attaining  the  goal  towards  which  he 
had  striven  with  so  much  persistence?  But 
during  these  years  of  study  his  ambition  had 
shifted  and  broadened.  To  be  sure,  he  still 
wished  to  be  a  professor  and  teach  the  sciences ; 
but  through  contact  with  the  masters  of  sci- 
ence, and  in  the  presence  of  the  glory  of  their 
discoveries,  he  had  become  determined  to  dis- 
tinguish himself  in  his  turn  by  personal  discov- 
eries, almost  as  though  he  had  a  presentiment 
of  his  own  high  destiny.  After  he  was  gradu- 
ated it  was  not  without  anxiety  that  he  realised 
that  he  might  be  sent  to  some  provincial  col- 
lege, far  from  all  the  instruments  essential  to 
him.  He  was  spared  this  misfortune  through 
the  interest  which  he  had  been  able  to  inspire 


A   LABORIOUS   YOUTH  23 

in  his  teachers,  Dumas,  Delafosse  and  Balard, 
the  last  of  whom  took  him  as  assistant  in  his 
laboratory. 

What  at  this  time  was  the  object  of  Louis 
Pasteur's  researches?  How  was  he  going  to 
approach  the  great  problems  of  science?  It 
seems  as  though  a  sort  of  predestination 
marked  out  his  scientific  career.  Pasteur,  who 
was  destined  to  arrive  finally  at  the  vaccines  of 
hydrophobia,  began  with  the  study  of  crystals, 
and  his  whole  career  was  a  sort  of  luminous 
ascension,  progressing,  from  the  constitution  of 
matter  and  its  processes,  all  the  way  to  the 
transformation  of  microbes,  the  infinitely  small 
yet  most  redoubtable  enemies  of  man,  into 
curative  agents. 

Crystalography  was  then  a  new  science,  with 
hesitant  and  controverted  formulas.  Essen- 
tial phenomena  remained  without  explanation, 
and  others  were  still  undiscovered,  escaping  all 
observation  and  all  control.  In  order  to  judge 
adequately  of  the  inspired  novelty  of  Pasteur's 
discoveries  it  is  necessary  to  understand  the 


24  PASTEUR 

state  of  this  science  at  the  moment  when  he  be- 
gan his  work. 

In  1840  the  men  of  science  had  only  chaotic 
knowledge  of  the  molecular  structure  of  crys- 
tals. ^They  knew  the  chemical  molecule/' 
writes  M.  Duclaux,  the  great  authority  who  was 
one  of  Pasteur's  disciples;  "they  knew  that  it 
is  formed  of  an  ordinarily  fairly  stable  group 
of  atoms,  of  which  the  number,  the  v/eight  and 
the  nature  may  usually  be  clearly  defined. 
They  knew,  for  example,  that  there  are  one 
atom  of  chlorine  and  one  atom  of  sodium  in  sea 
salt,  one  atom  of  calcium,  one  atom  of  carbon 
and  three  atoms  of  oxygen  in  carbonate  of  lime. 
They  had  recognised  that  different  composite 
molecules  are  ordinarily  differentiated  by  the 
number  and  nature  of  their  component  atoms, 
but  that  nevertheless  there  are  some  which  con- 
tain the  same  number  of  the  same  atoms  with- 
out for  that  reason  being  identical,  so  that  they 
were  led  to  suspect  that  they  differed  in  the  ar- 
rangement of  their  atoms.  What  could  be  the 
relative  disposition  of  these  atoms,  one  to  an- 


A   LABORIOUS   YOUTH  25 

other,  within  the  molecule?  And  what  would 
be  the  resultant  form  of  the  molecule  itself? 
All  these  were  questions  on  which  no  one  had 
any  clear  idea."  ^ 

Haiiy,  who  had  made  a  very  special  study  of 
crystals,  and  had  named  their  constructive 
molecule  the  integrant  molecule,  considered 
that  this  latter  had  no  relation  to  the  chemical 
molecule,  and  that  their  different  groupings 
were  produced  by  molecules  identically  the 
same.  Mitscherlich  demonstrated  that  this  the- 
ory was  not  absolutely  exact  by  replacing  the 
atoms  of  calcium  with  atoms  of  magnesium  in 
a  crystallization  of  carbonate  of  lime,  without 
altering  its  form.  This  constituted  the  phe- 
nomenon of  isomorphism.  Delafosse,  a  pupil 
of  Haiiy's,  and  one  of  Pasteur's  professors,  was 
destined  to  study  the  phenomenon  of  hemi- 
hedrism,  that  by  which  certain  crystals  evade 
the  law  of  symmetry  and  possess  one  facet 
which  has  no  corresponding  one,  but  he  was 
unable  to  find  the  explanation.    On  the  other 

'  Pasteur,  the  History  of  a  Mind,  by  E.  Duclaux,  p.  40 


26  PASTEUR 

hand,  Biot  had  for  a  long  time  been  investigat- 
ing the  rotary  power  of  hemihedric  crystals, 
and  he  had  established  that  certain  of  them 
could  deflect  polarised  light  to  the  right  and 
others  to  the  left.  This  necessitates  an  expla- 
nation which  we  will  borrow  from  M.  Duclaux: 
''We  all  know/'  he  writes,  "that  every  lumi- 
nous impression  is  the  result  of  a  vibration  ac- 
complished after  the  fashion  of  a  rigid  rod 
which,  held  in  a  vise  at  one  of  its  extremities, 
vibrates  at  the  other  by  oscillating  around  its 
position  of  equilibrium.  Now,  if  at  the  mova- 
ble extremity  it  has  a  polished  button  reflecting 
a  point  of  light,  we  can  make  this  point  of  light 
describe  an  ellipse,  a  circle  or  a  straight  line. 
Let  us  examine  this  last  case,  which  is  the  sim- 
plest, and  let  us  agree  to  give  the  name  of  plane 
of  polarisation  to  the  plane  which  contains  the 
vibrating  rod  and  the  line  of  light  described  by 
its  extremity.  Let  us  suppose  that  this  plane 
is  vertical  and  that  the  point  of  light  is  moving 
before  us  in  line  with  the  hands  of  a  clock 
pointing  to  six  o'clock.     So  long  as  there  is 


A   LABORIOUS   YOUTH  27 

nothing  but  the  air  intervening  between  the 
point  of  hght  and  our  eye,  the  vibration  will 
not  change  its  direction;  but  there  are  certain 
transparent  substances  which,  when  traversed 
by  it,  would  turn  it  to  the  position  of  the  hands 
of  a  clock  pointing  to  five  minutes  to  five,  if 
the  substance  passed  through  were  of  a  given 
thickness,  and  to  ten  minutes  to  four  if  it  were 
double  that  thickness.  In  other  terms  they 
cause  the  plane  of  polarisation  to  rotate  to  the 
left  to  an  extent  proportionate  to  their  thick- 
ness. We  will  call  substances  having  the  power 
of  rotation  to  the  left  left  substances.  There 
also  exist  certain  right  substances,  for  which, 
mutatis  mutandis,  the  definition  is  the  same.'' 
Young  Louis  Pasteur  entered  upon  his  work 
in  the  full  midst  of  the  evolution  of  the  sci- 
ence of  crystalography,  which  led  from  physics 
towards  chemistry,  that  was  still  full  of  un- 
solved problems.  In  pursuing  the  work  re- 
quired for  the  last  of  his  university  degrees  he 
tried  to  reconcile  those  personal  studies  that 
were  dictated  by  his  individual  taste  with  those 


28  PASTEUR 

that  were  to  give  him  the  high  title  of  Doc- 
tor of  Science.  He  initiated  himself  into  the 
practical  manipulation  of  the  laboratory,  he 
trained  himself  in  those  infinitely  delicate  ex- 
periments which,  if  they  are  to  be  profitable 
and  fruitful,  demand  calmness  and  unremit- 
ting attention.  With  a  profound  sense  of  reali- 
ties he  recommenced,  as  a  test  of  his  own  ac- 
curacy, the  experiments  of  La  Provostaye  in 
tartaric  acid  and  the  tartrates,  seeking  above  all 
to  learn  whether,  by  following  the  same  pro- 
cedure, he  would  obtain  the  same  results. 

For  Louis  Pasteur  this  was  a  period  of  intel- 
lectual fermentation,  in  which  ideas  flowed  to 
his  brain  in  extraordinary  abundance,  some  of 
them  perhaps  still  confused,  but  for  the  most 
part  new  and  destined  to  open  up  unforeseen 
paths  to  science.  On  the  23d  of  August,  1847, 
he  defended  his  theses  for  the  doctorate,  which 
were  piously  dedicated  to  his  father  and 
mother,  the  one  in  chemistry  treating  of  Re- 
searches into  the  Capacity  of  Saturation  of  Ar- 
senious  Acid  and  forming  a  Study  of  the  Ar- 


A   LABORIOUS   YOUTH  29 

senites  oj  Potash,  Soda  and  Ammonia,  and  that 
in  physics  containing  a  Study  oj  the  Phe- 
nomena relating  to  the  Rotary  Polarization  oj 
Liquids.  Following  his  defense  of  these  theses, 
which  won  him  the  degree  of  Doctor,  he  took 
an  extremely  brief  rest  at  Arbois,  and  it  was 
with  a  sort  of  feverish  impatience  that  he  re- 
turned to  Paris  to  continue  his  study  of  crys- 
tals. It  was  destined  to  continue  for  five  years 
and  to  end  by  shedding  light  upon  what  had 
hitherto  been  nothing  but  darkness  and  confu- 
sion. 

It  is  impossible  to  mention  all  the  details  and 
fluctuations  of  this  research,  for,  while  great 
flashes  of  inspired  intuition  opened  up  new  as- 
pects of  science,  he  verified  them  by  so  many 
experiments,  rigorously  conducted  and  fre- 
quently repeated,  that  a  detailed  account  would 
mean  a  bulletin  of  his  daily  toil.  In  proportion 
as  he  obtained  results  he  addressed  notes  to  the 
Academy  of  Sciences,  the  first  dating  from  1848, 
Note  on  the  Crystallization  oj  Sulphur,  Re- 
searches into  the  dijjerent  Modes  oj  Grouping 


30  PASTEUR 

in  Sulphate  of  Potash,  Researches  in  Dimorph- 
ism, Memorandum  on  the  Relation  which  may 
exist  between  Crystalline  Form  and  Chemical 
Composition  and  on  the  cause  of  Rotary  Polari- 
zation. 

These  austere  labours,  this  life  of  the  labora- 
tory, which  kept  his  mind  constantly  occupied 
and  concentrated  on  problems  difficult  of  solu- 
tion, nevertheless  in  no  wise  isolated  him  from 
the  vital  interests  of  the  French  nation.  In 
common  with  all  other  young  students,  he  had 
thrilled  at  the  proclamation  of  the  Republic  in 
1848,  and  it  was  with  enthusiasm  that  he 
greeted  the  words,  ''Liberty,  Equality,  Fra- 
ternity." Light  of  purse  though  he  was,  our 
young  savant  gave  to  his  country  his  entire 
savings,  one  hundred  and  fifty  francs,  and  he 
was  delighted  to  serve  in  the  national  guard. 
It  was  a  duty  which  he  joyfully  performed  on 
behalf  of  his  native  land,  for  under  all  circum- 
stances Pasteur  was  a  man  who  did  his  duty. 

A  cruel  bereavement  was  destined  shortly 
afterwards  to  interrupt  his  activities  during 


A   LABORIOUS   YOUTH  31 

several  months.  His  mother  died  suddenly,  in 
May,  1848,  and  it  is  easy  to  conceive  how  keen 
his  grief  was,  since  we  know  what  a  profound 
affection  he  cherished  for  his  family,  which, 
equally  with  science,  held  first  place  in  his 
thoughts.  For  long  weeks  he  found  himself  in- 
capable of  accomplishing  any  work,  yet  never- 
theless he  continued  the  course  of  his  studies, 
so  keen  was  his  passion  for  scientific  research. 
Meanwhile  his  communications  to  the  Acad- 
emy of  Science  had  attracted  the  attention  of 
the  learned  world  to  his  work.  Its  full  value 
and  originality  were  recognised  and  the  highest 
expectations  were  held  regarding  his  further 
researches.  Pasteur,  who  in  a  vague  way  was 
already  conscious  of  his  genius,  regarded  them 
as  no  more  than  a  schoolboy's  clever  essays,  but 
in  his  study  of  the  tartrates  and  paratartrates 
he  was  destined  to  distinguish  himself  in  a  mar- 
vellous manner.  Without  entering  into  a 
minute  explanation  of  these  questions,  it  should 
be  understood  that  Mitscherlich,  who  had  made 
some  remarkable  experiments  with  crystals,  had 


32  PASTEUR 

proved  that  tartrates  and  paratartrates  were 
the  same  identical  salts,  excepting  that  the 
former  acted  upon  polarised  light  and  pos- 
sessed a  rotary  power,  while  the  latter  remained 
without  action.  It  is  at  this  precise  point  that 
we  are  forced  to  admire  the  inspired  intuition 
of  Pasteur,  who,  starting  from  a  preconceived 
idea,  proved  experimentally  that  it  was  correct. 
Why  was  there  this  difference,  he  asked  him- 
self, between  salts  which  appeared  to  be  identi- 
cal? Undoubtedly  it  was  due  to  a  difference  in 
their  composition  which  had  an  influence  upon 
their  external  aspect,  a  difference  which  had 
not  yet  been  observed.  And  this  difference  he 
discovered  by  a  searching  examination  of  these 
crystals.  The  tartrates  had  one  hemihedric 
facet — were  manchots,  one-armed,  to  borrow 
M.  Duclaux's  vivid  simile — while  the  paratar- 
trates obeyed  the  law  of  symmetry  in  regard  to 
their  facets.  The  rotary  power  was  directly  re- 
lated to  the  dissymmetry  of  the  molecular 
structure.  This  first  discovery  was  followed  by 
a  second,  which  was  in  a  way  a  consequence  of 


A   LABORIOUS   YOUTH  33 

it  and  which  revolutionised  all  the  hitherto  ac- 
quired knowledge  of  molecular  composition. 
Pasteur  resolved  to  find  out  ¥/hy  the  para- 
tartrates  did  not  deflect  light;  he  analysed 
them  anew,  at  great  length,  and  he  perceived 
that  the  double  paratartrates  of  sodium  and 
ammonia,  like  those  of  sodium  and  potassium, 
had  hemihedric  crystals,  but  that  the  ones  were 
left-handed  and  the  others  right-handed.  This 
seemed  to  contradict  his  first  discovery,  and  it 
was  at  this  point  in  his  labours  that  his  de- 
cisive experiment  took  place.  ^'In  spite  of 
much  that  was  unexpected  in  this  result,"  he 
said,  "I  none  the  less  continued  to  follow  up 
my  idea.  I  carefully  separated  out  the  right- 
hand  hemihedric  crystals  and  the  left-hand 
hemihedric  crystals,  and  I  observed  separately 
the  effect  of  their  solutions  in  the  polarising 
apparatus.  I  then  saw,  with  no  less  surprise 
than  delight,  that  the  right-hand  hemihedral 
crystals  deflected  the  plane  of  polarisation  to 
the  right,  and  the  left-hand  hemihedral  crys- 
tals deflected  to  the  left;  and,  when  I  took  an 


34  PASTEUR 

equal  weight  of  each  kind  of  these  crystals,  the 
mixed  solution  was  neutral  in  its  effect  on  polar- 
ised light,  through  the  neutralisation  of  the  two 
individual  deflections  that  were  equal  and  in 
opposite  directions/'  {Researches  in  Molecular 
Dissymjnetry .  Lecture  delivered  before  the 
Societe  Chimique  de  Paris,  1869,  p.  29.) 

In  the  presence  of  this  confirmation,  which 
fulfilled  his  highest  hopes,  Pasteur  was  seized 
with  such  emotion  that  he  was  forced  to  leave 
his  library  on  a  run,  and  flung  his  arms  around 
the  first  of  his  colleagues  whom  he  met,  in  his 
keen  joy  over  this  essential  discovery.  He 
broke  the  news  to  Biot,  who  for  long  years  had 
been  studying  the  rotary  power  of  crystals,  by 
notifying  him  that  he  v/as  ready  to  communi- 
cate the  results  of  his  experiments.  The  aged 
scientist  and  member  of  the  Institute  accepted 
his  young  colleague's  offer,  and  the  scene  which 
took  place  between  them  was  one  of  real 
beauty.  It  has  been  admirably  recorded  by  M. 
Vallery-Ptadot: 

'The  meeting  took  place  at  the  College  de 


A   LABORIOUS   YOUTH  35 

France,  where  Biot  lived.  Every  slightest  de- 
tail of  that  interview  must  have  remained  fixed 
forever  in  Pasteur's  memory.  Biot  began  by 
going  in  search  of  paratartaric  acid. 

"'I  have  studied  it/  he  said,  Vith  particu- 
lar care:  it  is  perfectly  neutral  in  relation  to 
polarised  light.'  A  tinge  of  mistrust  was  visi- 
ble in  his  gestures  and  betrayed  itself  in  the 
tone  of  his  voice.  ^I  will  bring  you  everything 
you  need,'  continued  the  old  man  as  he  went  in 
quest  of  the  required  quantities  of  soda  and 
ammonia.  He  desired  that  the  double  salt 
should  be  prepared  in  his  presence. 

"After  pouring  the  liquid  obtained  into  the 
crystalliser,  Biot  took  it  and  set  it  aside  in  one 
corner  of  his  apartment,  in  order  to  be  quite 
sure  that  no  one  would  touch  it.  ^I  will  notify 
you  when  you  are  to  come  back,'  he  said  to  Pas- 
teur as  he  ushered  him  out.  Forty-eight  hours 
later  the  crystals,  very  small  at  first,  began  to 
take  form.  When  there  appeared  to  be  a  suffi- 
cient quantity  of  them  Pasteur  was  summoned. 
Still  in  the  presence  of  Biot,  Pasteur  drew  out 


36  PASTEUR 

the  finest  crystals,  one  by  one,  wiped  them  in 
order  to  remove  the  mother  liquid  adhering  to 
them,  then  pointed  out  to  Biot  the  opposition 
of  their  hemihedric  character  and  separated 
them  into  two  groups:  right  crystals  and  left 
crystals. 

"  'You  claim,'  said  Biot,  'that  the  crystals 
placed  on  your  right  will  deflect  the  plane  of 
polarisation  to  the  right  and  that  the  crystals 
placed  on  your  left  will  deflect  it  to  the  left?' 

"  'Yes,'  replied  Pasteur. 

"  'Very  well,  I  will  attend  to  the  rest.' 

"Biot  prepared  the  solutions,  and  once  again 
sent  for  Pasteur.  Biot  began  by  placing  in  the 
apparatus  the  solution  which  was  supposed  to 
deflect  to  the  left.  When  the  deflection  was 
verified  he  took  Pasteur  by  the  arm  and  uttered 
the  phrase  which  has  so  often  been  cited  and 
which  deserves  to  become  famous:  'My  dear 
boy,  I  have  loved  science  so  dearly  all  my  life 
that  this  sets  my  heart  beating ! ' 

"  'As  a  matter  of  fact,'  Pasteur  afterwards 
said,  in  recalling  this  interview,  'it  was  evident 


A   LABORIOUS   YOUTH  37 

that  the  most  vivid  light  had  been  thrown 
upon  the  cause  of  the  phenomenon  of  rotary 
polarisation  and  on  the  hemihedrism  of  crys- 
tals; that  a  new  class  of  isomeric  substances 
had  been  discovered;  that  the  unexpected  and 
hitherto  unexampled  formation  of  racemic  or 
paratartaric  acid  had  been  unveiled ;  in  a  word, 
that  a  great  path,  new  and  unforeseen,  had 
been  opened  to  science.'  "  {La  Vie  de  Pasteur.) 
The  encouragements  of  his  masters,  Balard 
and  Biot,  their  praises,  and  the  certainty  that 
he  would  not  be  obliged  to  interrupt  the  se- 
quence of  his  discoveries  kept  him  in  a  state 
of  feverish  activity.  But  at  the  end  of  1848  he 
was  obliged  to  leave  the  laboratory,  in  spite  of 
the  intervention  of  his  protectors,  and  betake 
himself  to  the  Lycee  at  Dijon,  to  which  he  had 
been  appointed  professor  of  physics.  It  was 
not  without  regret  that  he  abandoned  his  ex- 
perimental courses  and  his  researches,  for  he 
felt  that  his  personal  labours  were  of  more  use 
to  science  than  any  instruction  that  he  might 
give.    Nevertheless,  he  submitted  to  the  order 


38  PASTEUR 

of  the  Minister  of  Instruction  and,  from  the 
moment  that  he  was  installed,  applied  hiniself 
to  a  conscientious  fulfilment  of  the  duties  of  his 
new  function.  He  proved  himself  to  be  a 
methodical  and  painstaking  professor,  seeking 
above  all  things  to  be  clear  in  expounding  the 
science  that  he  taught,  and,  far  from  priding 
himself  on  the  superiority  of  his  own  intelli- 
gence, he  spent  long  hours  in  preparing  his  lec- 
tures, in  order  to  make  them  easily  compre- 
hensible to  his  young  students.  Nevertheless, 
in  spite  of  his  faithful  performance  of  his  duties 
as  a  public  instructor,  he  v/as  not  v\^ithout  re- 
gret for  the  days  that  he  must  spend  outside  of 
the  laboratory.  This  inactivity  in  regard  to  his 
personal  researches  weighed  so  heavily  upon 
him  that  he  asked  to  be  transferred,  some 
months  after  his  arrival  at  Dijon,  and,  upon  be- 
ing appointed  to  the  Faculty  of  Strasburg  as 
substitute  professor  of  chemistry,  was  able  to 
take  possession  of  his  new  office  on  the  15th  of 
January,  1849,  and  to  continue  his  researche^j. 


A    LABORIOUS   YOUTH  39 

in  spite  of  the  scanty  equipment  that  he  had  at 
his  disposal. 

An  event  of  great  importance  in  the  life  of 
Pasteur  awaited  him  at  Strasburg,  and  one 
which  was  destined  to  have  a  most  fortunate  in- 
fluence upon  his  vv'hole  career  as  a  scientist. 
For  it  was  here  that  he  was  soon  to  find  do- 
mestic happiness.  From  his  very  first  visit  to 
the  president  of  the  Faculty,  M.  Laurent,  he 
conceived  a  strong  partiality  for  one  of  the 
daughters,  Mile  Marie  Laurent.  With  that 
prevision  which  was  characteristic  of  him,  he 
was  straightway  convinced  that  this  young  lady 
was  the  one  essential  to  his  hearth  and  home, 
and,  having  once  made  up  his  mind,  he  acted 
with  his  customary  prompt  decision  and  asked 
her  hand  in  marriage.  Between  his  arrival  in 
Strasburg  and  this  request  less  than  fifteen  days 
had  intervened !  M.  Laurent,  to  whom  he  pre- 
sented a  short  note  setting  forth,  with  admira- 
ble sincerity,  his  financial  status,  his  position  in 
the  University  and  his  ambitions,  accepted  him 
as  son-in-law.     This  was  a  day  to  be  marked 


40  PASTEUR 

with  a  white  stone,  for  Mme  Pasteur,  down  to 
the  last  day  of  her  husband's  life,  never  ceased 
to  surround  him  with  the  tenderest  and  most 
devoted  care,  to  watch  over  his  hours  of  toil 
and  his  hours  of  rest,  and  to  keep  him  in  such 
a  state  that  he  could  employ  his  genius  to  the 
full  extent  of  its  powers. 

Louis  Pasteur  remained  on  the  Faculty  of 
Strasburg  until  1854,  and  was  appointed  titular 
professor  of  chemistry  in  1852.  This  whole 
period  is  marked  by  numerous  researches, 
which  form  the  natural  sequence  of  those  that 
he  undertook  in  crystalography,  but  which  ex- 
tend far  beyond  that  science,  thanks  to  the 
new  perceptions  that  he  brought  to  them  and 
the  consequences  which  naturally  developed 
from  them. 

From  this  same  aspect  of  dissymmetry  and 
hemihedrism,  he  studied  the  aspartates  and  the 
malates,  shed  light  upon  obscure  questions 
which  no  chemist  before  had  successfully  han- 
dled, established   the  laws  of  molecular  dis- 


A   LABORIOUS   YOUTH  41 

symmetry,  and  took  up  and  solved  the  problem 
of  dissymmetry  in  cellular  life. 

Pasteur  continued  to  address  memoranda  to 
the  Academy  of  Sciences,  and  the  learned  world 
began  to  be  stirred  by  these  communications, 
which  proved  him  to  be  an  investigator  en- 
dowed with  genius.  The  most  celebrated  mem- 
bers of  the  Institute  followed  his  progress  with 
sympathetic  interest,  men  such  as  Dumas, 
whom  as  a  young  student  he  could  not  hear 
lecture  at  the  Sorbonne  without  emotion,  Biot, 
Balard,  Regnault,  and  Senarmont;  and  it  oc- 
curred to  them  to  elect  him  as  corresponding 
member  of  the  Academy  of  Sciences.  During 
a  visit  of  the  illustrious  scientist,  Metscher- 
lich,  to  Paris,  Louis  Pasteur  had  the  pleasure 
of  showing  the  results  he  had  obtained  to  the 
German  crystalographer,  who  thanked  and  con- 
gratulated him,  and  informed  him  that  the  ex- 
tremely rare  racemic  acid  was  still  manufac- 
tured in  Germany.  At  this  news  Pasteur's  zeal 
caught  fire,  and,  since  it  was  vacation  time,  he 
set  forth,  in  September,  1852,  on  the  pursuit  of 


42  PASTEUR 

this  singular  substance  which  had  once  been 
obtained  by  accident  at  Thann,  which  had  since 
been  lost  sight  of,  and  which  he  was  nov/  in- 
formed was  to  be  found  at  a  manufactory  of 
chemical  products  in  Saxony. 

There  followed  a  mad  chase  throughout  the 
length  and  breadth  of  Germany.  Louis  Pas- 
teur kept  a  journal  of  his  varied  adventures, 
which  he  sent  to  his  wife  and  which  reveals  his 
passionate  ardor,  his  immense  desire  to  possess 
at  last  this  acid  which  had  once  astonished  the 
scientific  world.  The  chase  was  a  heroic  one. 
Pasteur  went  from  Leipzig  to  Zwichau,  from 
Zwichau  to  Dresden,  from  Dresden  to  Freiberg, 
from  Freiberg  to  Vienna,  from  Vienna  to 
Prague,  filled  alternately  with  emotions  of  hope 
and  despair,  according  as  he  thought  that  he 
had  found  racemic  acid,  or  that  the  elusive  sub- 
stance still  seemed  to  evade  him.  ^'I  will  pur- 
sue it  for  ten  years,  if  need  be,"  he  wrote  to 
Mme  Pasteur. 

His  researches,  his  experiments  in  the  manu- 
factories, his  inquiries  did  not  hinder  him  from 


A   LABORIOUS   YOUTH  43 

visiting  the  museums,  and  here  it  was  that  the 
artistic  side  of  his  nature  found  satisfaction. 
In  Dresden  he  kept  a  record  of  the  paintings 
which  pleased  him,  and  he  made  notes  which 
show  the  degree  of  his  admiration  for  each  of 
them.  Pasteur  debated  the  question  of  going 
all  the  way  to  Venice  in  order  to  obtain  crude 
tartar  which  contained  the  rare  acid,  but  he  re- 
turned to  France  without  having  made  this  ex- 
tra journey  and  very  much  fatigued  by  his  long 
ramblings.  He  had  convinced  himself  that  ra- 
cemic  acid  existed  in  tartar  that  had  not  been 
washed  and  that  it  was  to  be  found  in  the 
mother  liquid.  Hence  his  pursuit  had  not  been 
unprofitable. 

Upon  returning  to  his  laboratory  in  Stras- 
burg,  Pasteur  undertook  a  task  which  it  seemed 
to  him  would  be  difficult  to  realise,  but  which 
was  not  beyond  his  powers.  He  had  decided 
that  this  racemic  acid  which  no  other  chemist 
had  produced  should  issue  from  his  own  labora- 
tory! With  this  ambitious  design  he  began  ex- 
periments of  unimagined  delicacy,  working  with 


44  PASTEUR 

confidence,  although  the  master  chemists  whom 
he  had  told  of  his  intent  believed  that  he  could 
not  succeed.  He  was  destined  to  triumph ;  the 
magician  was  about  to  vanquish  nature.  In 
June,  1853,  he  announced  to  his  father  and  to 
Biot  that  he  had  artificially  obtained  racemic 
acid.  It  was  a  splendid  victory,  which  amazed 
all  scientists  versed  in  the  study  of  crystals  and 
of  chemistry.  The  Academy  of  Sciences  gave 
prolonged  attention  to  this  discovery,  and  the 
Society  of  Chemistry  bestowed  upon  its  author 
a  prize  of  fifteen  hundred  francs,  which  it  had 
offered  to  anyone  who  should  produce  this  ex- 
traordinary acid.  With  his  usual  disinterested- 
ness, Pasteur  spent  half  of  this  sum  in  the  pur- 
chase of  such  instruments  as  were  lacking  in 
the  Strasburg  laboratory.  The  government 
took  notice  of  the  achievements  of  the  young 
scientist  that  were  so  magnificently  crowned  by 
a  success  which  his  own  masters  had  not  ex- 
pected, and  Louis  Pasteur  received  the  cross  of 
the  Legion  of  Honour  when  he  was  barely 
thirty  years  of  age. 


CHAPTER   III 

ON  THE  ROAD  TO  FAME 

IT  needs  only  a  brief  examination  in  order  to 
realise  that  the  works  of  Pasteur,  even 
those  most  widely  different  in  appearance,  fol- 
low one  another  like  the  links  of  a  chain  and 
present  an  admirable  unity.  Towards  the  end 
of  his  studies  of  crystals  his  ideas  became  gen- 
eralised, and  extended  his  theory  of  molecular 
dissymmetry  to  the  constitution  of  the  uni- 
verse, while  a  certain  laboratory  experiment 
was  destined  to  turn  his  attention  to  ferments. 
Having  broken  a  crystal  of  tartrate,  Pasteur 
plunged  it  again  into  the  mother  liquid,  and, 
discovering  that  the  crystal  became  restored  in 
its  entirety,  he  compared  this  breakage  to  a 
wound  which  is  healed  with  the  help  of  new 
molecules  of  its  own  kind.    On  the  other  hand^ 

45 


46  PASTEUR 

he  had  observed  that  the  tartrates  undergo  veri- 
table fermentations,  and  he  believed  that  these 
fermentations  might  be  due  to  a  microscopic 
organism  which  pla3^ed  the  role  of  a  ferment; 
so  that,  setting  forth  from  crystalography,  he 
finally  arrived  at  researches  into  the  origin  of 
life. 

Having  been  appointed  Professor  of  Chemis- 
try and  Dean  of  the  Faculty  recently  founded 
at  Lille  in  1854,  Pasteur,  while  faithfully  ful- 
filling his  pedagogical  duties,  prepared  to  carry 
on  his  studies  of  fermentations.  He  spared  no 
pains  to  prove  himself  worthy  of  the  confidence 
placed  in  him  by  M.  Fortoul,  the  Minister  of 
Public  Instruction,  and  he  succeeded  in  raising 
the  new  Faculty  entrusted  to  him  to  the  first 
rank  of  scientific  establishments.  More  than 
two  hundred  auditors  attended  his  courses,  and 
twenty-one  students  were  enrolled  for  practi- 
cal work  in  the  laboratory.  He  exerted  himself 
to  carry  out  the  programme  of  the  Minister, 
whose  desire  was  to  train  operators  and  practi- 
cal workers  in  the  higher  manufacturing  indus- 


ON   THE   ROAD   TO   FAME        47 

tries,  but  he  never  ceased  to  repeat  that  nothmg 
counted  apart  from  theory,  and  that  theory 
alone  could  be  productive  of  great  results.  At 
the  same  time  Pasteur  initiated  his  students 
into  industrial  methods  by  taking  them  to  visit 
the  manufacturers  of  the  neighbourhood,  where 
they  were  able  to  judge  at  first  hand  which 
were  the  best  of  the  methods  employed.  Fur- 
thermore, the  General  Council  of-  the  North 
recognised  the  practical  value  of  his  knowledge 
and  his  teaching  by  entrusting  him  with  the 
examination  of  the  fertilisers  essential  to  agri- 
culture. 

The  problem  of  fermentations  which  Pasteur 
was  preparing  to  solve  victoriously  was  even 
more  obscure  than  those  offered  by  crystalog- 
raphy.  How  did  the  heavy  dough,  formed  of 
flour  mixed  with  water,  become  the  light  and 
substantial  bread;  how  was  the  crushed  grape 
transformed  into  wine?  Undoubtedly  these 
questions  had  occupied  the  attention  of  man 
ever  since  the  most  remote  antiquity,  and  many 


48  PASTEUR 

answers  were  made  to  them,  but  no  answer  that 
was  scientifically  satisfactory. 

The  alchemists  of  the  middle  ages  thought 
that  yeast  had  a  certain  power  of  transmuta- 
tion and  that  fermentation,  if  applied  to  metals, 
would  enable  them  to  transmute  a  base  metal, 
such  as  iron,  into  a  precious  metal,  such  as 
gold.  The  first  of  all  to  approach  the  truth  was 
Paracelsus,  who  compared  fermentations  to 
diseases,  but  his  idea  was  still  vague,  and  not 
based  upon  experiments.  We  must  wait  until 
we  come  down  to  Lavoisier  in  order  to  see  fer- 
mentations studied  upon  a  basis  of  facts,  but 
neither  this  great  chemist  nor  those  who  fol- 
lowed him,  Gay-Lussac,  Cagniard-Latour, 
Schwann,  Helmholtz,  Liebig,  succeeded  in  dem- 
onstrating their  real  origin.  The  theory  most 
generally  accepted,  at  the  time  when  Pasteur 
began  his  researches,  was  that  of  Liebig,  who 
attributed  fermentations  to  matter  in  the  course 
of  decomposition,  which  played  the  role  of  a 
ferment  in  the  mediums  into  which  they  were 
introduced. 


ON   THE   ROAD   TO   FAME        49 

It  was  in  a  sugar  refinery  at  Lille,  owned  by 
M.  Bigo,  that  Pasteur  entered  upon  the  study 
of  fermentations.  He  approached  it  equipped 
with  all  the  knowledge  acquired  through  his 
work  in  the  tartrates,  which  must  have  singu- 
larly aided  him  to  reach  a  solution  of  the  prob- 
lem that  had  been  so  long  and  vainly  sought. 
We  cannot  follow  him  through  these  delicate 
and  difficult  experiments,  but  he  arrived  at  this 
luminous  and  unforeseen  conclusion  that  fer- 
mentation was  not  a  phenomenon  of  death,  as 
Liebig  had  thought  it,  but  a  phenomenon  of 
life,  and  this  he  proved  in  an  irrefutable  man- 
ner. 

His  experiments,  which  were  directed  more 
especially  to  lactic  and  alcoholic  fermentation, 
showed  him  that  all  fermentation  was  due  to 
the  presence  of  living  cells  which  alone  were 
the  active  agents  of  the  transformation.  These 
cells  had  a  life  of  their  own,  and  the  phenomena 
of  fermentations  were  closely  connected  with  it 
and  influenced  by  the  different  phases  of  its 
evolution,  according  as  these  cells  were  ill,  dy- 


50  PASTEUR 

ing  or  in  full  vigour.  This  was  indeed  a  light 
thrown  upon  what  had  hitherto  been  nothing 
but  darkness,  a  discovery  w^hich  was  destined 
to  create  an  entire  new  science  and  of  which  the 
consequences  were  at  that  time  incalculable. 

The  scientific  associations,  both  in  France 
and  abroad,  disturbed  at  first  by  Pasteur's  far- 
sighted  genius  and  by  the  unforeseen  results  of 
his  researches,  awaited  his  communications 
with  something  bordering  upon  impatience.  He 
received  recognition  beyond  any  of  the  other 
young  investigators,  for  he  had  proved  himself 
to  be  one  of  those  with  whom  it  was  henceforth 
necessary  to  reckon.  He  began  to  receive  rec- 
ompenses. In  1857  the  Royal  Society  of  Lon- 
don bestowed  upon  him  the  great  Rumford 
medal  for  his  work  in  crystalography,  and  the 
same  year  his  friends  in  the  Institute,  and  Biot 
among  the  first,  who  felt  a  paternal  affection 
for  him,  urged  him  to  present  himself  as  a  can- 
didate for  the  Academy  of  Sciences  in  the  sec- 
tion of  mineralogy.  Pasteur  accepted  this  flat- 
tering invitation  from  the  masters  of  his  pro- 


ON    THE    ROAD    TO    FAME         51 

fession,  who  now  looked  upon  him  as  at  least 
their  equal,  but  he  made  a  rather  sorry  candi- 
date, being  too  fond  of  truth  and  justice  to  be 
willing  to  play  upon  those  little  human  vani- 
ties which  assure  success  in  all  elections.  Ac- 
cordingly, in  spite  of  Senarmont's  report,  which 
was  highly  eulogistic  of  Pasteur's  discoveries, 
insisting  upon  their  value  and  importance,  Pas- 
teur received  only  sixteen  votes.  He  took  his 
way  back  to  Lille,  not  greatly  cast  down  by  a 
defeat  which  he  had  foreseen,  but  he  remained 
there  only  a  short  time,  because,  on  the  open- 
ing of  the  scholastic  year  of  1857,  he  was  ap- 
pointed Administrator  of  the  Ecole  Normale 
and  director  of  the  scientific  studies,  while 
Nisard  assumed  the  general  direction. 

Henceforth  this  was  to  be  the  centre  of  Pas- 
teur's life,  his  whole  life  of  toil,  of  combats  on 
behalf  of  science  and  humanity,  and  his  family 
life  as  well,  a  very  happy  one,  notwithstanding 
that  it  was  destined  to  be  marked  by  some  in- 
evitable bereavements  which  his  profound  faith 
as  a  Catholic  aided  him  to  bear.    It  was  from 


52  PASTEUR 

the  little  laboratory  in  the  Rue  d'Ulm  that  the 
great  and  peaceful  revolution  was  to  proceed, 
designed  to  cure  all  the  ills  of  life  by  penetrat- 
ing the  secrets  of  nature.  It  ought  to  be  re- 
garded as  a  sacred  spot,  for  one  of  the  finest 
of  all  human  minds  lived  and  thought  there, 
while  such  high  virtues  as  courage,  persever- 
ance and  moral  strength  were  there  put  into 
magnificent  practice. 

M.  Maurice  de  Fleury  has  related  how  Pas- 
teur never  ceased  working,  even  when  his  la- 
borious day  was  ended : 

''During  fifteen  years,"  he  says,  ''he  could  be 
seen  each  evening  after  dinner  pacing  up  and 
down  a  long  corridor  where  no  one  dared  to 
come  and  interrupt  his  reverie.  Paralysed  since 
1870 — for  on  two  different  occasions  apoplexy 
attacked  his  brain — he  would  seize  the  bunch 
of  keys  in  his  pocket  with  his  stiffened  hand 
and  make  them  rattle  in  order  to  soothe  his 
thoughts  with  the  rhythmic  sound;  and  as  he 
walked  he  slightly  dragged  one  foot,  while  his 
mind  ripened  some  newly  conceived  idea  or 


ON    THE    ROAD    TO    FAME         53 

prepared  for  the  experiment  of  the  morrow.  At 
times  his  reverie  assumed  the  intensity  of  ecs- 
tacy;  and  within  the  brain  of  this  man  of 
genius  flashes  of  light  revealed  his  goal,  and 
gave  him  a  prevision  of  ail  that  was  destined 
to  emanate  from  him. 

"How  beautiful  it  is!  How  beautiful  it  is!" 
he  would  murmur  in  low  tones.  Then,  resum- 
ing his  pacing  with  a  firmer  step,  he  would  add, 
''I  must  work."  And  so  he  would  continue  un- 
til the  hour  of  eleven. 

Is  there  not  something  deeply  touching  in 
this  picture  of  the  great  man  toiling  on  into 
the  night,  after  all  the  experiments  he  had 
made  during  the  day,  experiments  made  under 
very  hard  conditions?  His  laboratory  in  the 
Ecole  Normale  was,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  ex- 
ceedingly primitive  and  inconvenient.  It  con- 
sisted of  two  inadequate  rooms  which  he  him- 
self had  contrived  in  the  garret,  and,  while  it 
was  freezing  cold  in  winter,  during  the  summer 
the  temperature  would  rise  to  97°  Fahrenheit. 
Nevertheless,  it  was  here  that  he  completed  his 


54  PASTEUR 

studies  of  fermentations,  from  1857  to  1859, 
and  notably  those  of  alcoholic  fermentation. 
It  was  here  also  that  he  was  destined  to  dis- 
cover a  phenomenon  which  overthrew  all  ac- 
cepted ideas  regarding  the  essential  conditions 
of  animal  life.  No  one  had  questioned  that 
oxygen  was  a  necessity  to  all  animals  without 
exception.  Pasteur  proceeded  to  prove  that  for 
certain  species  it  was  fatal,  and  that  they  died 
at  its  contact.  While  examining  under  the  mi- 
croscope a  tiny  drop  of  butyric  fermentation, 
placed  between  two  very  thin  sheets  of  glass, 
Pasteur  observed  that  the  bacteria  known  as 
the  vibrion,  which  produce  this  fermentation, 
were  very  lively  at  the  centre  and  furthest  from 
the  air,  but  that  those  near  the  border  line  be- 
came inert.  What  was  he  to  conclude  from 
this  phenomenon,  which  contradicted  all  obser- 
vations that  he  had  previously  made  of  various 
infusions,  in  which  the  animalcula  left  the 
centre  of  the  drop  in  order  to  draw  near  to  the 
margin  which  supplied  them  with  more  oxy- 
gen?   Was  it  possible  that  there  were  animal 


ON    THE    ROAD    TO    FAME         55 

forms  which  made  an  exception  to  a  law  that 
was  supposed  to  be  general,  were  there  some 
that  led  an  anaerobic  life  (i.  e.,  without  oxy- 
gen), while  it  had  previously  been  regarded  as 
settled  that  all  animals  led  an  aerobic  life,  in 
which  oxygen  was  a  necessity?  Pasteur  solved 
this  question  by  passing  a  current  of  air  into  a 
flask  containing  a  butyric  fermentation,  and 
immediately  the  life  of  the  vibrions  diminished 
in  intensity  and  finally  ceased.  The  proof  had 
been  obtained  that  there  were  animal  forms  to 
which  oxygen  was  fatal. 

But  how  did  it  happen  that  these  anaerobic 
vibrions  had  not  met  with  oxygen  in  the  me- 
dium in  which  they  were  bred?  It  was  because 
the  aerobic  vibrions  which  preceded  their  evolu- 
tion had  exhausted  all  the  oxygen  in  the  liquid, 
and  thus  gave  them  a  chance  to  live  and  multi- 
ply. Furthermore,  these  two  forms  of  life  were 
found  coexisting  in  the  same  liquid,  a  part  of 
the  aerobic  forms  having  died  and  fallen  to 
the  bottom  of  the  vessel  after  exhausting  the 
oxygen,  while  the  more  vigorous  rose  to  the 


56  PASTEUR 

surface  and  continued  to  live,  thanks  to  the 
oxygen  in  the  air,  and  formed  at  the  same  time 
a  protective  layer  for  the  anaerobics,  which 
were  thus  enabled  to  develop  in  the  lower 
depths.  Pasteur  was  destined,  later  on,  to 
study  in  detail  these  phenomena  which  no  one 
before  him  had  observed,  and  to  gather  new 
light  from  them.  M.  Duclaux  emphasises  the 
element  of  genius  in  these  researches: 

^^I  have  tried  to  present  all  these  deductions 
as  a  whole,"  he  writes,  "because  as  a  matter  of 
fact  they  were  the  result  of  a  few  weeks  of 
work  and  meditation,  and  also  because  they 
afford  us  an  example  of  Pasteur's  power  of  pen- 
etration in  perceiving  and  outlining  a  problem, 
and  the  patience  he  exhibited  in  gathering  to- 
gether the  elements  essential  to  a  solution. 
Throughout  the  best  years  of  his  life  this  man 
lived  in  advance  of  his  time,  a  pioneer  lost  in 
solitude,  absorbed  in  the  contemplation  of  the 
horizons  he  had  discovered  and  which  his  eye 
alone  could  behold  and  traverse.  What  is  less 
surprising  than  his  indifference  to  the  details 


ON   THE   ROAD    TO   FAME         57 

of  actual  life?  He  lived  in  his  own  thoughts, 
without  being  a  dreamer,  for  a  dream  which 
reaches  its  goal  and  produces  results  ceases  to 
be  a  dream." 

But  these  delicate  experiments  and  lofty 
speculations  did  not  make  Pasteur  forget  that 
he  was  Administrator  of  the  Ecole  Normale  as 
well  as  director  of  scientific  studies.  And  never 
did  a  man  take  his  duties  more  seriously  than 
he,  even  when  they  were  a  burden  and  a  con- 
straint. He  applied  himself  to  everything  that 
he  undertook  with  the  same  degree  of  attention 
and  conscientiousness,  and  nothing  seemed  to 
him  too  trivial  to  be  worthy  of  supervision  and 
painstaking.  Accordingly  he  took  every  pains 
to  give  a  perfect  administration  to  the  great 
school  that  he  still  loved  as  well  as  he  had  done 
in  boyhood,  when  it  had  appeared  to  him  as 
the  far-off  goal  of  his  highest  hopes.  He  con- 
cerned himself  about  the  health  of  the  stu- 
dents and  the  hygiene  of  the  locality,  and  even 
the  smallest  details  were  objects  of  his  solici- 
tude, such  as  airing  a  classroom  or  sanding  a 


58  PASTEUR 

court.  Even  the  scientific  side  of  his  mind 
found  employment  in  his  administrative  role: 
for  instance,  when  he  undertook  comparative 
calculations  as  to  the  number  of  ounces  of  meat 
furnished  for  each  meal  to  the  students  at  the 
Normale  and  the  Poly  technique ! 

This  anxiety  to  be  a  good  administrator  in 
no  wise  interfered  with  his  researches.  He  ac- 
cepted the  additional  burden  without  com- 
plaint, and  his  scientific  activity  was  in  no  wise 
retarded.  In  the  same  manner  that  crystals 
led  him  to  fermentations  it  was  these  latter 
which  were  destined  to  lead  him  to  studies 
which  seemed  to  overstep  the  boundary  of  sci- 
ence and  to  enter  the  metaphysical  domain  of 
the  origins  of  life,  the  solution  of  which  had 
hitherto  been  the  concern  of  philosophers 
rather  than  of  scientists.  When  Pasteur  saw, 
under  the  lens  of  a  microscope,  cells  of  yeast 
conducting  themselves  like  living  organisms, 
when  he  saw  the  vibrio7is  moving,  growing  and 
dying,  he  straightway  asked  himself  where  these 
yeasts  and  these  vibrions  come  from.    Are  they 


ON    THE    ROAD    TO    FAME         59 

born  spontaneously  from  matter  in  a  state  of 
decomposition,  or  is  it  not  more  likely  that,  in 
accordance  with  the  general  laws  of  life,  they 
are  produced  by  germs?  This  was,  in  short, 
the  question  of  spontaneous  generation,  which 
had  so  long  been  combatted  and  which  he  now 
undertook  to  solve.  Pasteur  believed  that 
nothing  is  self-creative,  but  this  was  something 
which  had  to  be  proved,  and  he  succeeded  in 
proving  it  victoriously,  in  the  full  heat  of  bat- 
tle, and  in  spite  of  the  attacks  and  insults  of 
those  who  championed  the  opposite  doctrine. 

His  friends,  with  Biot  at  their  head,  tried 
to  turn  him  aside  from  these  researches,  which 
they  judged  useless  and  vain.  But  Pasteur, 
strong  in  his  conviction  and  with  that  dogged 
will  v/hich  never  turned  back  from  any  obstacle, 
so  long  as  he  was  sure  that  he  had  grasped  the 
truth,  disregarded  the  advice  of  his  elders  and 
plunged  into  experiments  that  bristled  with  dif- 
ficulties. 

From  the  most  remote  antiquity  spontaneous 
generation  had  been  accepted,  and  it  is  well 


60  PASTEUR 

known  that  the  ancients  believed  that  eels  were 
born  from  the  slime  of  river  banks,  and  that  it 
did  not  seem  to  them  impossible  that  bees 
should  issue  from  the  decomposing  entrails  of 
a  bull.  Without  going  quite  so  far  back,  we 
find  that  the  great  naturalist,  Buff  on,  supported 
the  theory  of  spontaneous  generation;  but  the 
first  experiments  to  prove  its  truth  were  made 
by  an  Irishman,  Needham,  in  the  eighteenth 
century.  Enclosing  putrefying  matter  in  a  ves- 
sel which  he  sealed  hermetically,  and  heating 
the  whole  apparatus  in  hot  ashes,  in  order  to 
destroy  all  living  germs,  he  allowed  the  vessel 
to  become  cold,  and  after  the  lapse  of  several 
days  he  found  that  it  contained  animalcula. 
This  went  to  prove  that  spontaneous  genera- 
tion had  taken  place.  Spallanzani  repeated 
these  experiments,  and,  after  heating  the  closed 
vessel  to  a  higher  degree,  observed  that  no  ani- 
malcula afterwards  developed.  Needham  re- 
joined that  by  using  too  high  a  degree  of  heat 
he  had  killed  the  vegetative  force  from  which 
creation  proceeded.    None  of  these  experiments 


ON   THE   ROAD   TO   FAME        61 

was  conclusive,  and,  although  they  were  re- 
peated by  Gay-Lussac,  Schulze  and  Schwann, 
their  results  remained  uncertain  and  often  con- 
tradictory. 

When  Pasteur  intervened  the  theory  of  spon- 
taneous generation  was  supported  by  Pouchet, 
and  it  may  be  said  that  it  was  accepted  by  a 
considerable  number  of  scientists.  It  is  true, 
however,  that  no  decisive  evidence  had  been 
offered  either  for  or  against  the  theory.  It  was 
at  this  moment  that  Pasteur  revealed  himself, 
not  only  as  a  man  of  daring  and  profound 
thought,  but  as  the  most  careful  and  experi- 
enced of  operators.  To  those  who  believed  in 
spontaneous  generation  he  said,  "Everything 
comes  from  a  germ,  and  even  these  animalcula, 
which  seem  to  you  to  have  been  born  spontane- 
ously in  the  infusions  in  which  they  develop, 
come  quite  simply  from  germs  and  spores  which 
are  floating  in  the  air.  You  have  conducted 
your  experiments  badly ;  I  will  begin  them  over 
again,  and  I  will  prove  to  you  that  the  sub- 
stances which  you  regard  as  subject  to  decay 


62  PASTEUR 

are  not  so  when  they  are  rigorously  sheltered 
from  the  air." 

Pasteur  began  his  experiments  at  the  end  of 
1859,  and  he  pursued  them  in  the  midst  of  the 
din  of  battle,  for  his  adversaries  disputed  his 
conclusions  in  advance.  The  contest  lasted  for 
more  than  four  years,  with  attacks,  counter- 
attacks and  violent  battles,  but  finally  the  vic- 
tory remained  with  Pasteur,  without  even  his 
most  bitter  enemies  venturing  to  dispute  him 
further. 

Assailing  his  problem  at  its  foundation,  he 
proved  the  actual  existence  of  germs  and  spores 
in  the  atmosphere ;  then  he  conceived  of  a  dis- 
tribution of  glass  globes  which  would  enable 
him  to  demonstrate  by  experiment  what  he  had 
already  maintained  against  the  supporters  of 
spontaneous  generation.  Pasteur  declared  that 
germs  are  unevenly  distributed  in  the  at- 
mosphere, and  that  the  air  of  high  mountain 
tops  contains  either  few  or  none  at  all ;  Pouchet 
and  Joly,  on  the  contrary,  contended  that  air, 
by  its  own  nature^  could  cause  spontaneous 


ON   THE   ROAD   TO   FAME         63 

generation  in  any  and  every  locality.  Both 
parties  made  experiments  in  their  own  behalf, 
and  each  experiment  gave  different  results. 
These  polemics  spread  beyond  scientific  circles 
to  the  daily  press,  and,  since  the  question  of 
religion  was  involved,  the  public  took  sides  for 
the  one  party  or  the  other,  according  to  their 
individual  opinions,  the  results  obtained  by 
Pasteur  being  regarded  as  conforming  with  the 
biblical  account  of  the  creation,  while  those  of 
Pouchet  seemed  to  invalidate  and  contradict  it. 
For  his  first  demonstration  Pasteur  em4Dloyed 
globes  with  a  curving  neck,  into  which  he  in- 
troduced an  infusion  liable  to  putrefy,  either  of 
hay  or  of  malt,  which  had  been  brought  to  the 
boiling  point  in  order  to  destroy  whatever 
germs  it  might  contain ;  and,  having  done  this, 
he  left  the  globes  exposed  to  the  open  air.  No 
disturbances  took  place  in  the  infusion,  but  if, 
by  tipping  the  globes,  he  brought  the  liquid  into 
contact  with  the  walls  of  the  curved  neck, 
after  a  longer  or  shorter  time  the  infusion 
would  begin  to  swarm  with  life,  thus  furnish- 


64  PASTEUR 

ing  a  double  proof,  first,  that  pure  air  has  no 
effect  upon  hquids  subject  to  putrefaction,  and, 
secondly,  that  it  was  the  germs  and  spores 
heavier  than  the  air  which  had  been  deposited 
in  the  curved  neck  that  gave  birth  to  the  in- 
fusoria popularly  attributed  to  spontaneous 
generation. 

On  the  other  side,  Pouchet  declared  that  the 
air,  being  everywhere  the  same,  had  the  power, 
no  matter  where  it  was  gathered,  of  causing 
the  creation  of  vibrions,  through  its  action  upon 
liquids  subject  to  putrefaction;  while  Pasteur 
continued  to  maintain  that  germa  and  spores 
were  unequally  distributed  in  the  atmosphere, 
and  that,  if  the  air  was  taken  from  the  moun- 
tain tops,  it  was  impossible  that  it  should  dis- 
turb the  liquids  brought  into  contact  with  it, 
since  there  would  be  a  complete  absence  of 
germs  and  spores.  The  experiments  which  Pas- 
teur made,  as  simple  as  they  are  conclusive,  to 
demonstrate  the  truth  of  his  conception,  have 
remained  historic.  It  was  through  the  aid  of 
globes  with  a  straight  neck  finely  drawn  out 


ON   THE   ROAD   TO   FAME        65 

that  he  ultimately  succeeded;  and  this  is  the 
way  that  he  achieved  his  proof,  thanks  to  his 
practical  qualities  as  an  experimenter  of  ex- 
treme caution  who  never  left  anything  to 
chance. 

After  having  half  filled  his  globes  with  some 
alterable  liquid,  such  as  an  infusion  of  brewer's 
yeast,  Pasteur  brought  it  to  the  boiling  point, 
and,  when  the  steam  had  driven  out  ail  the  air, 
he  quickly  closed  the  point  of  the  finely  drawn- 
out  neck  by  means  of  a  blow-pipe.  The  globes 
thus  prepared — the  liquid  being  contained  in 
an  almost  absolute  vacuum — were  transported 
to  various  different  localities,  and  then  opened 
with  infinite  precautions:  the  fine  point  of  the 
neck  was  broken  with  pincers  previously  heated 
in  a  flame,  the  air  re-entered  the  globes,  which 
were  immediately  sealed  again  and  placed  in 
ovens,  where  they  were  subjected  to  a  tempera- 
ture of  86  degrees  Fahrenheit.  The  liquid  be- 
haved differently,  according  to  the  locality  from 
which  the  air  had  been  obtained,  the  fermenta- 
tion being  very  rapid  if  it  had  come  from  a 


66  PASTEUR 

neighbourhood  where  there  was  much  dust, 
much  slower  when  it  was  taken,  for  instance, 
from  the  cellar  of  the  Observatory,  and  in  some 
cases  there  was  no  alteration  at  all. 

In  spite  of  these  results,  Pasteur's  experi- 
ments continued  to  be  disputed.  He  resolved 
to  undertake  a  scientific  campaign,  against 
which  his  adversaries  should  no  longer  be  able 
to  stand  out.  Armed  with  sixty-three  globes, 
he  set  forth,  in  September,  1860,  for  the  moun- 
tain heights  of  the  Alps.  He  halted  first  at  Ar- 
bois,  where  he  took  some  specimens  of  air ;  then 
from  Mount  Poujet  he  proceeded  to  Chamou- 
nix,  and  there  he  opened  some  of  his  globes 
on  the  Mer  de  Glace.  There,  in  that  pure  air, 
far  from  human  crowds,  germs  and  spores 
ought  either  not  to  exist  or  else  to  be  very  rare. 
The  results  proved  that  he  was  right.  Out  of 
twenty  globes  opened  on  the  mountain  heights 
nineteen  remained  sterile,  while  in  the  case  of 
those  into  which  air  was  admitted  at  lower 
levels  the  proportion  of  sterile  ones,  out  of  the 


ON   THE   ROAD   TO   FAME        67 

same  number,  fell  off  to  fifteen  and  to  twelve. 
The  proof  was  decisive. 

But  Pouchet,  his  bitterest  opponent,  having 
repeated  the  same  experiments,  only  with  a 
less  degree  of  care,  arrived  at  different  results, 
and  denied  the  value  of  Pasteur's  demonstra- 
tions. He  also  had  obtained  air  from  various 
localities,  even  from  Sicily,  and  there,  just  as 
elsewhere,  he  had  found  it  fertile,  and  ready  to 
act  upon  liquids  capable  of  putrefying.  The 
conflict  assumed  epic  proportions.  The  ses- 
sions of  the  Academy  of  Sciences  caught  the 
echoes  of  it,  each  theory  having  its  partizans, 
and  each  experimenter  his  enemies.  Pasteur, 
however,  ended  by  convincing  the  learned  as- 
semblage, which  in  1862  awarded  him  a  prize 
for  his  Memorandum  on  Organic  Corpuscles 
existing  in  the  Atmosphere.  Alone,  or  almost 
alone,  Pouchet,  Joly  and  Musset  refused  to  lay 
down  arms,  and  continued  to  carry  on  an  active 
war.  In  order  to  force  them  to  surrender  Pas- 
teur requested  the  Academy  of  Sciences  to 
name  a  commission  to  judge  between  him  and 


68  PASTEUR 

his  adversaries,  each  party  being  required  to  re- 
peat their  experiments  in  the  presence  of  the 
commissioners  chosen.  Pouchet,  Joly  and  Mus- 
set  accepted,  but  on  the  day  appointed  for  the 
tests  they  announced  that  they  had  failed, 
while  Pasteur,  accompanied  by  Duclaux,  ar- 
rived bringing  his  globes  and  his  liquids  with 
him.  The  experiment  was  a  success,  and 
Baland  recorded,  in  the  name  of  the  Commis- 
sion, the  conclusive  results,  in  the  Comtes 
Rendus  de  VAcademie  des  Sciences.  After  a 
hard  campaign  of  several  years  Pasteur  was  at 
last  triumphant. 

This  question  of  spontaneous  generation 
aroused  an  interest  outside  of  the  men  of  sci- 
ence. It  had  called  attention  to  the  mysteri- 
ous world  of  infinitely  little  things,  and  people 
were  eager  to  gather  around  the  microscope  in 
order  to  see  these  redoubtable  organisms,  the 
full  extent  of  whose  power  was  as  yet  unknown. 
Pasteur  had  obtained  the  concession  of  a  suite 
of  five  rooms  in  the  Ecole  Normale,  to  be  used 
as  a  laboratory.    Having  thus  been  enabled  to 


ON   THE   ROAD    TO   FAME        69 

quit  his  garret,  he  began  to  receive  illustrious 
visitors,  statesmen,  society  women,  personages 
of  high  standing  at  court,  all  of  whom  came  to 
beg  him  to  initiate  them  into  the  secrets  which 
he  had  discovered,  and  of  which  he  seemed  to 
be  the  sole  guardian. 

During  his  researches  in  spontaneous  gen- 
eration Pasteur  had  received  from  the  Academy 
of  Sciences,  in  1860,  the  prize  for  experimental 
physiology,  and  in  1861  he  had  for  a  second 
time  presented  himself  as  a  candidate  in  the 
section  of  botany.  He  was  supported  by  his 
faithful  friend  Biot,  but,  nevertheless,  he  ob- 
tained only  24  votes.  He  was  not  destined  to 
be  elected  until  the  8th  of  December,  1862, 
with  a  majority  of  36  out  of  a  total  of  sixty 
votes,  to  the  section  of  mineralogy,  where  he 
succeeded  Senarmont. 

Pasteur  was  now  celebrated,  acclaimed  by 
some,  and  combatted  by  others  who  were  un- 
able to  comprehend  the  utterly  new  order  of 
his  genius.  Napoleon  III  expressed  his  desire 
to  meet  him,  and  it  was  his  first  master,  Dumas, 


70  PASTEUR 

the  one  who  had  formerly  caused  Pasteur  such 
keen  emotion  by  his  lectures  on  chemistry  at 
the  Sorbonne,  who  presented  him  to  the  Em- 
peror at  the  Tuileries  in  March,  1863. 

Pasteur  delighted  Napoleon  III  by  his  seri- 
ous and  simple  manner.  He  explained  his  ideas 
regarding  the  scientific  problems  on  which  he 
was  engaged,  and  confessed  to  the  Emperor 
that  his  most  secret  ambition  was  to  study  con- 
tagious diseases  in  order  to  find  a  cure  for  all 
humanity. 


CHAPTER   IV 

FOR  THE  NATIONAL  WEALTH 

THE  campaign  which  Pasteur  was  conduct- 
ing against  spontaneous  generation  did 
not  absorb  his  entire  activity.  He  pursued  his 
studies  of  fermentation,  striving  to  penetrate 
the  secrets  of  the  infinitely  small,  the  yeasts, 
the  vibrions,  the  infusoria,  that  whole  disquiet- 
ing world,  the  universal  and  formidable  activity 
of  which  was  not  even  yet  suspected.  Perhaps 
he  already  discerned,  although  only  vaguely, 
their  presence  in  human  diseases,  and  this  was 
the  object  of  his  researches  and  profound  med- 
itations. 

Pasteur  used  to  arrive  at  his  laboratory, 
walking  slowly,  sunk  in  thought,  and  with  his 
forehead  lined  with  care.  He  gave  orders  to  his 
assistants,  pointing  out  the  experiments  which 

71 


72  PASTEUR 

he  wished  to  have  made,  but  never  revealing 
the  idea  behind  them.  Succeeding  Raulin,  he 
had  Duclaux,  who  was  still  young  and  who  was 
destined  to  become  a  great  scientist.  Duclaux 
admired  the  achievements  of  his  master,  and 
with  his  keen  and  lucid  mind  followed  his 
luminous  trail,  while  he  often  added  to  his  du- 
ties as  assistant  the  humbler  ones  of  a  labora- 
tory attendant,  wiping  the  apparatus,  the  re- 
torts and  flasks,  a  devoted  servant  in  the  tem- 
ple of  science.  A  rather  sorry  temple,  by  the 
way,  for  the  laboratory  was  extremely  incon- 
venient, with  its  five  scanty  rooms  and  a  stove 
installed  behind  the  staircase,  where  Pasteur 
could  not  enter  except  on  his  knees.  Duclaux 
compared  it  to  a  rabbit  cage,  ^^and  yet  it  was 
from  there,"  he  said,  "that  the  movement 
started  which  revolutionized  science." 

Already  at  that  epoch  a  large  faction  of  the 
younger  generation  of  scientists  had  come  un- 
der the  daily  increasing  influence  of  Pasteur. 
"The  Normal  School  chemists  of  I860,"  wrote 
Mrs.  Duclaux,  in  her  Vie  d'^mile  Duclaux,  "be- 


FOR   THE   NATIONAL  WEALTH     73 

lieved  in  Pasteur  as  the  romantics  of  1830  be- 
lieved in  Victor  Hugo.  They  saw  before  them 
virgin  lands  and  unimagined  sources.  Thanks 
to  the  genius,  the  faith  and  the  religious  spirit 
that  the  master  infused  into  his  work,  he  in- 
spired these  younger  men  with  his  own  enthusi- 
asm, and  they  believed  themselves  born  to  rev- 
olutionise the  ideas  which  had  served  as  dog- 
mas for  their  predecessors;  and  such  a  belief  is 
strangely  intoxicating  to  young  brains !  Among 
the  assistants  and  students  who  gathered 
around  M.  Pasteur  in  the  little  laboratory  in 
the  Rue  d'Ulm,  there  was  a  continual  inter- 
change of  conceptions  and  of  projects — very 
different  ones  from  those  that  are  born  and  die 
daily  apropos  of  literature  or  philosophy,  for 
these  discussions  dealt  with  the  only  form  of 
truth  that  is  capable  of  being  verified,  namely 
science." 

But,  while  Pasteur  kept  secret  the  object  he 
had  in  view  during  the  course  of  his  experi- 
ments that  were  often  long,  difficult  and  count- 
less times  recommenced,  when  he  had  once  ob- 


74  PASTEUR 

tained  his  results  he  boldly  and  vigorously  pro- 
claimed them.  He  had  a  scorn  of  bad  faith, 
routine  and  prejudice,  and  every  one  knows  the 
famous  apostrophe  which  he  addressed  to  his 
adversaries  who  were  disputing  his  discoveries 
in  relation  to  the  crystals  of  tartrates  at  a  meet- 
ing of  the  Societe  Philomatique  on  the  eighth 
of  December,  1862 :  "If  you  have  ever  known 
anything  of  the  subject,  what  have  you  done 
with  your  knowledge?  And,  if  you  have  not 
known,  why  do  you  interfere?"  He  was  a  rough 
antagonist,  but  he  fought  only  for  the  triumph 
of  truth,  putting  all  personal  considerations 
aside. 

In  the  course  of  his  studies  of  fermentations 
Pasteur  was  led  to  study  the  phenomenon 
through  which  wine  was  transformed  into 
vinegar.  The  celebrated  chemist,  Liebig,  had 
established  a  theory  which  did  not  altogether 
agree  with  his  own  observations,  and  he  pro- 
ceeded victoriously  to  advance  his  own  theory 
in  opposition. 

The   manufacturers  of  vinegar   in  Orleans 


FOR   THE    NATIONAL   WEALTH     75 

pursued  the  following  method :  Into  groups  of 
stationary  barrels  they  poured  a  mixture  of 
two-thirds  ripened  vinegar  and  one-third 
wine.  On  the  surface  of  this  mixture  there 
was  formed  a  thin  film,  of  which  no  one  knew 
the  composition,  but  which  was  necessary  in 
order  to  obtain  a  prompt  and  thorough  acetifi- 
cation,  or  transformation  into  vinegar.  The 
manufacturers  took  great  care  of  this  film,  for, 
if  it  was  dislodged  or  if  it  sank  to  the  bottom 
of  the  barrels,  the  whole  operation  had  to  be 
done  over.  What  was  this  film  which,  in  order 
to  work  well,  required  a  current  of  fresh  air 
that  was  furnished  by  drilling  an  opening  in 
the  barrels  a  little  above  the  level  of  the  liquid? 
Pasteur  worked  for  nearly  a  year  on  this  prob- 
lem, and  he  proved  that  acetification  was  caused 
by  a  microbe  which,  living  on  the  surface  of  the 
liquid,  obtained  oxygen  from  the  air  and  trans- 
ferred a  part  of  it  to  the  liquid  below,  which 
in  this  way  was  oxidised.  He  gave  this  microbe 
the  name  of  mycoderma  aceti,  or  mycoderm 
of  vinegar.     This  ferment  is  endowed  with 


76  PASTEUR 

an  extraordinary  power  of  prolificness.  The  in- 
dividual cells,  twice  as  long  as  they  are  wide,  are 
so  minute  that  it  requires  400  of  them,  placed 
end  to  end,  and  800,  placed  side  by  side,  to 
measure  a  millimetre  in  length,  that  thirty  mil- 
lion can  find  space  in  a  square  centimetre,  and 
three  hundred  billion  are  formed  in  twenty-four 
hours  upon  a  square  metre  of  the  liquid !  What 
is  the  weight  of  these  three  hundred  billions  of 
cells?  One  gram,  and  this  gram  is  capable  of 
transforming  ten  kilograms  of  alcohol  into 
vinegar  in  the  space  of  five  days.  It  follows 
that  a  single  cell  consumes,  in  the  course  of  one 
day,  a  quantity  of  nourishment  equal  to  two 
thousand  times  its  own  weight.  From  these 
fabulous  figures  one  can  form  some  conception 
of  the  activity  of  these  infinitely  small  organ- 
isms and  of  their  formidable  power  in  the 
economy  of  universal  life. 

Pasteur  discovered  that  the  mycoderm  of 
wine  could  become  ill  and  that  it  produced 
either  good  or  bad  vinegar  as  the  case  might  be. 
Through  proper  cultivation  he  obtained  perfect 


FOR   THE   NATIONAL   WEALTH     77 

cells  which,  when  placed  in  a  mixture  of  wine 
and  vinegar,  produced  an  excellent  and  regular 
acetification.  Up  to  this  time  the  industry  of 
the  vinegar  makers  of  Orleans  was  subject  to  all 
sorts  of  losses  due  to  ignorance  and  to  chance. 
Pasteur  furnished  them  with  a  method  which 
never  failed.  He  saved  them  from  the  daily 
anxiety  of  obtaining  bad  products,  and  he 
helped  them  to  gain  millions. 

At  the  same  time  that  he  was  occupied  with 
vinegars  Pasteur  had  been  investigating  even 
as  far  back  as  1863  the  origin  of  different  mala- 
dies which  affect  wines.  The  municipal  coun- 
sel of  Arbois,  priding  themselves  on  this  illus- 
trious compatriot,  offered  him  a  laboratory 
where  he  might  pursue  these  studies  that  were 
of  interest  to  all  the  wine  growers  of  France. 
Pasteur  preferred  to  be  installed  in  independent 
quarters;  and  Duclaux,  who  on  several  occa- 
sions directed  the  experiments  made  at  Arbois, 
has  given  a  most  picturesque  description  of  the 
place.  The  laboratory  had  been  established  in 
a  former  cafe: 


78  PASTEUR 

'The  traditional  signboard  had  been  left 
above  the  entrance,  in  consequence  of  which 
it  often  happened  to  us  to  have  customers 
enter  and  ask  for  food  and  drinks.  Gen- 
erally they  halted  at  the  door,  surprised  at 
the  strangeness  of  the  furnishings,  and  took 
themselves  off  without  a  word,  assuredly 
carrying  with  them  visions  of  the  almanac 
of  Nostradamus.  It  must  be  said  in  their 
defense  that,  if  the  room  no  longer  resembled 
a  cafe,  it  resembled  a  laboratory  quite  as  little. 
There  was  no  gas;  the  heating  was  done  with 
coal,  the  flames  of  which  were  made  more  ac- 
tive at  the  required  moment  with  the  help  of 
fans.  There  was  no  water;  we  ourselves  went, 
like  Rebecca,  to  draw  it  at  the  public  fountain, 
or,  like  Nausicaa,  to  wash  our  utensils  by  the 
river  bank.  Our  tables  were  trestles,  and  as 
for  our  apparatus,  since  nearly  all  of  it  came 
from  the  local  carpenter,  tinsmith  or  black- 
smith of  Arbois,  it  may  be  imagined  that  they 
did  not  have  the  canonical  forms  and  that, 
when  we  walked  through  the  streets  on  our 


FOR   THE   NATIONAL   WEALTH     79 

way  to  the  wine  cellars  to  get  the  wine  for  the 
purpose  of  analysis,  we  did  not  pass  by  without 
calling  forth  some  sarcastic  comments  from  the 
somewhat  hostile  inhabitants  of  the  little 
town.'^ 

Whatever  this  haphazard  workshop  may 
have  been,  Pasteur's  experiments,  methodically 
and  perseveringly  continued,  were  decisive. 
What  was  the  cause  of  the  maladies  of  wines? 
Contrary  to  the  widely  accepted  opinions,  Pas- 
teur proved  that  oxygen  was  not  injurious  to 
wine,  but  that,  on  the  contrary,  it  was  oxygen 
which  aged  it  and  gave  it  flavour  and  bouquet. 
Wine  hermetically  sealed,  without  contact  with 
oxygen,  remained  forever  young.  This  preju- 
dice having  been  overcome  by  experiments, 
Pasteur  showed  further  that  each  malady  of 
wine  had  its  own  special  microbe  and  that  un- 
der the  microscope  it  was  possible  to  distin- 
guish those  of  la  tourne,  of  Vamer,  of  la  graisse, 
all  of  them  well-known  maladies  of  wine,  but 
by  no  means  the  only  ones. 

How  was  it  possible  to  combat  these  mi- 


80  PASTEUR 

crobes,  the  terrors  of  wine  growers  and  epicures, 
for  no  barrel  and  no  bottle  was  surely  safe? 
Pasteur  tried  at  first  to  use  antiseptics,  taste- 
less and  odourless,  but  without  obtaining  good 
results.  It  was  through  the  application  of  heat 
that  he  finally  solved  the  problem,  and  it  was 
well  worth  the  solving,  since  the  vineyards  of 
France  produce  as  a  matter  of  fact  fifty  million 
hectolitres  of  an  average  value  of  five  hundred 
million  francs,  and  suffer  enormous  losses 
through  the  occurrence  of  diseases. 

Pasteur  heated  the  wines  in  a  closed  vessel 
to  130  degrees  Fahrenheit,  and  by  thus  destroy- 
ing the  microbes  put  them  in  a  condition  to  be 
kept  without  danger  of  spoiling.  But  this  proc- 
ess of  heating  had  to  contend  with  many  preju- 
dices. It  was  believed  that  it  altered  the  qual- 
ity of  the  wines,  and  the  wine  growers  were  re- 
luctant to  adopt  this  method  of  preservation. 
A  commission  was  appointed  to  try  the  effect 
of  the  Pasteur  method  upon  wines  to  be  trans- 
ported by  sea.  They  put  on  board  the  Jean- 
Bart  at  Brest  samples  of  wine  that  had  been 


FOR   THE   NATIONAL   WEALTH     81 

heated  and  other  samples  that  had  not  been 
heated.  After  ten  months  of  ocean  travel  the 
former  samples  were  declared  by  the  commis- 
sion to  be  excellent  in  all  respects,  while  the  lat- 
ter samples  had  turned  sour.  The  experiment 
was  repeated  on  board  the  frigate  La  Sibylle, 
and  gave  the  same  results.  The  wine  that  had 
been  heated  preserved  all  its  characteristic 
qualities  and  escaped  all  injury.  For  that  mat- 
ter the  protection  of  liquids  by  heating  has  now 
become  general  and  we  pasteurise  milk,  beer, 
etc. 

Napoleon  III  became  interested  in  Pasteur's 
study  of  wines,  for  it  involved  the  question  of 
safeguarding  one  of  the  principal  sources  of  the 
wealth  of  France.  Accordingly,  during  one  of 
the  sojourns  of  the  court  at  Compiegne  both 
he  and  the  Empress,  Eugenie,  were  initiated 
into  the  details  of  the  experiments.  It  was  in 
1865  that  Pasteur,  armed  with  his  microscope 
and  his  samples  of  wine,  delivered  a  lecture  on 
the  subject  before  the  emperor  and  empress, 
and  taught  them  to  distinguish,  with  their  eye 


82  PASTEUR 

at  the  lense,  the  microbes  of  the  tourne  from 
those  of  the  amer.  Napoleon  III  expressed  sur- 
prise that  it  had  not  occurred  to  Pasteur  to 
make  a  pecuniary  profit  out  of  his  discoveries, 
which  were  worth  tens  of  milKons  to  the  wine 
industry,  and  Pasteur  made  this  fine  response: 
"In  France  a  scientist  would  think  that  he  had 
demeaned  himself  if  he  did  such  a  thing."  Ac- 
cording to  his  standards,  they  must  content 
themselves  with  glory  and  with  the  satisfaction 
of  a  duty  fulfilled. 

In  Pasteur,  Napoleon  III  liked  both  the  man 
and  the  scientist,  and  many  a  time  he  invited 
him  either  to  the  Tuileries  or  to  Compiegne. 
Arrangements  were  made  to  conduct  some  ex- 
periments in  the  apartments  of  the  empress, 
and  in  the  presence  of  the  ladies  of  honour  Pas- 
teur expounded  the  mysteries  of  the  world  of 
infinitely  little  things.  Incidentally  he  met 
with  a  singular  adventure,  which  might  have 
banished  him  from  the  Court,  if  the  affection 
which  the  Empress  bore  him  had  been  less 
genuine.    For  the  purposes  of  a  certain  demon- 


FOR   THE   NATIONAL   WEALTH     83 

stration  Pasteur  had  needed  some  live  frogs, 
which  he  had  obtained  from  the  head  gardener 
of  the  parks  at  Compiegne.  When  the  experi- 
ment was  ended  the  absent-minded  scientist 
left  the  frogs  behind  him,  imprisoned  in  an  in- 
secure bag.  They  invaded  the  bed  chamber 
of  the  Empress,  and  the  latter,  arising  during 
the  night,  set  her  foot  upon  a  cold  and  slimy 
frog.  She  experienced  a  terrible  fright  and 
very  nearly  fainted.  Afterwards  she  laughed  at 
her  own  fear,  but,  although  she  bore  no  grudge 
against  Pasteur,  she  could  never  again  bear 
even  the  sight  of  the  poor,  inoffensive  frog! 

In  1867  Pasteur  received  from  the  jury  of  the 
Exposition  Universelle  a  grand  prize  for  his 
services  in  behalf  of  wines.  But  even  before 
these  researches  were  fully  completed  he  had 
prepared  to  undertake  a  new  series  of  studies 
that  were  destined  to  enhance  his  fame  still 
further. 

For  fifteen  years  a  veritable  scourge  had  rav- 
aged the  departments  of  southern  France.  The 
industry   of  rearing  silk-worms,    formerly   so 


84  PASTEUR 

prosperous  that  the  mulberry  tree  had  come  to 
be  called  the  tree  of  gold,  had  fallen  off  alarm- 
ingly, with  an  annual  loss  of  more  than  fifty 
million  francs.  The  people  were  reduced  to 
dire  poverty,  and  the  sorely  tried  land  owners, 
helpless  to  combat  the  cause  of  their  ruin,  ap- 
pealed to  the  government.  Strange  maladies 
were  spreading  among  the  silk-worms,  which 
died  in  countless  numbers,  and  there  was  no 
remedy  that  seemed  to  help  them.  Dumas, 
commissioned  to  present  to  the  Senate  the  peti- 
tion from  the  affected  district,  having  confi- 
dence in  the  genius  of  Pasteur,  begged  him  to 
consent  to  go  and  study  on  the  spot  this  disease 
of  the  silk-worms,  which  was  proving  so  fatal 
to  a  national  industry  that  in  the  single  district 
of  Alais  it  had  caused  within  five  years  a  loss 
of  nearly  a  hundred  and  fifty  million  francs. 

Pasteur  knew  nothing  of  the  subject,  but  in 
the  face  of  such  a  permanent  menace,  which 
condemned  a  whole  section  of  France  to  the 
blackest  misery,  he  consented  to  absent  him- 
self from  his  beloved  laboratory  in  the  Rue 


I— I    ►>  -H 


FOR   THE   NATIONAL   WEALTH     85 

d'Ulm  and  to  accept  the  commission  from  the 
Ministry  of  Agriculture.  It  was  in  the  midst 
of  sorrow  and  mourning  that  he  was  destined 
to  carry  on  this  new  study — a  long  and  diffi- 
cult one,  lasting  from  1865  to  1870 — for  within 
a  few  years  he  lost  his  father  and  two  of  his 
daughters.  His  father!  We  know  the  pro- 
found affection  that  he  felt  for  the  old  soldier 
of  the  Empire,  to  whom  he  owed  his  love  for 
work  and  that  steadfast  conscience  that  guided 
him  so  straightly  through  the  path  of  life.  His 
daughters!  The  joy  and  the  hope  of  his  home 
circle.  These  intimate  tragedies  traced  a  few 
additional  lines  upon  his  austere  face,  but  it 
was  with  the  same  valiant  heart,  the  same  un- 
biased mind,  the  same  tenacious  will  that  he 
continued  to  pursue  his  great  task  on  behalf  of 
humanity. 

Pasteur  left  Paris  in  the  early  days  of  June, 
1865,  and  installed  himself  at  Pont-Biquet,  in 
a  small  silk-worm  farm  near  Alais,  in  the  very 
heart  of  the  stricken  district. 

The  diseases  of  silk-worms  had  already  been 


86  PASTEUR 

studied  by  Guerin-Menneville,  Lebert  and 
Frey,  Osimo,  Cantoni  and  de  Quatrefages,  the 
latter  of  whom  gave  its  name  to  the  most  re- 
doubtable of  these  diseases,  pebrine.  In  this 
disease  the  bodies  of  the  infected  worms  be- 
came covered  over  with  spots  resembling  grains 
of  pepper.  It  was  known  in  a  vague  way  that 
it  was  caused  by  corpuscles,  but,  when  it  be- 
came a  question  of  determining  their  nature 
and  the  manner  of  their  invasion,  there  was 
nothing  but  darkness  and  contradictions.  As 
for  remedies,  they  were  purely  empirical;  re- 
sort was  had  to  sulphur,  sugar,  ground  mus- 
tard, ashes,  etc.,  and  all  of  them  were  quite  in 
vain. 

Pasteur  had  to  find  his  way  through  an  in- 
extricable labyrinth,  without  any  special  knowl- 
edge, and  armed  solely  with  his  intuitive  mind 
and  his  unrivalled  qualities  as  an  investigator. 
In  his  Histoire  d'un  Esprit  Duclaux,  who,  to- 
gether with  Gernez  and  Maillot,  was  his  col- 
laborator at  Pont-Biquet,  relates  all  the  fluctu- 
ations of  that  six  years'  struggle,  with  its  mis- 


FOR   THE   NATIONAL   WEALTH     87 

takes,  its  hopes,  and  its  discouragements,  sur- 
rounded by  the  indifference  and  the  hostility 
of  those  whose  interests  it  disturbed,  and  the 
final  triumph,  assured,  indisputable  and  univer- 
sally acclaimed. 

At  the  very  beginning  Pasteur  made  the  mis- 
take of  thinking  that  the  corpuscles  were  the 
result  of  pebrine  and  that  they  did  not  make 
their  appearance  until  the  disease  had  reached 
a  certain  stage.  But,  notwithstanding  that  he 
was  wrong  in  this,  he  established  the  fact  that 
corpusculous  moths  produced  corpusculous 
eggs,  and  that  the  whole  problem  was  to  find  a 
way  of  obtaining  healthy  eggs.  In  this  way  he 
opened  up  the  path  to  the  truth.  After  ex- 
periments of  unimagined  delicacy  which  de- 
manded ceaseless  watchfulness,  Pasteur  con- 
vinced himself  that  the  corpuscles  were  not  an 
effect  of  the  disease,  but  its  cause,  a  form  of 
parasite  that  invaded  the  bodies  of  the  silk- 
worms. He  proved  that  pebrine  was  hereditary 
and  contagious,  and  that  the  variations  that 
were  shown  to  occur  in  the  disease  were  due 


88  PASTEUR 

solely  to  the  state  of  receptivity  of  the  indi- 
vidual insects,  according  as  they  were  more  or 
less  sensitive  to  the  action  of  the  parasite.  Here 
we  have  in  embryo  the  theory  of  microbic  dis- 
eases, which  was  destined  a  few  years  later  to 
revolutionise  the  science  of  medicine. 

Pasteur  converted  himself  into  a  cultivator  of 
silk-worms,  and,  after  many  alternations  be- 
tween success  and  defeat,  he  obtained  eggs  that 
were  perfectly  healthy.  His  method  was  sim- 
ple. After  the  moths  had  finished  laying  he 
reduced  their  bodies  to  a  pulp,  and  examined 
them  under  a  microscope,  and  every  batch  of 
eggs  that  was  thus  shown  to  have  come  from  a 
corpusculous  moth  was  destroyed.  This  opera- 
tion, although  so  simple,  encountered  desperate 
opposition  on  the.  part  of  vendors  of  silk- worm 
eggs,  with  whose  trade  it  interfered.  It  re- 
quired all  of  Pasteur's  energy  to  overcome  this 
opposition,  and  all  his  activity  as  well,  for  he 
had  to  respond  to  all  the  appeals  of  the  silk 
producers  who  sought  his  eggs  or  his  advice  as 
to  the  best  methods  to  follow.    A  campaign  of 


FOR   THE   NATIONAL   WEALTH     89 

insults  and  calumnies  was  organised  against 
the  great  man,  and  it  is  even  stated  that  he 
once  had  to  seek  safety  in  Alais,  followed  by 
an  angry  mob  that  stoned  him  as  he  went.  Pas- 
teur was  keenly  sensitive  to  such  malevolent 
attacks,  but  none  the  less  he  continued  his  task. 
Rising  early  in  the  morning,  he  would  stand 
for  long  hours  before  the  cases  of  silk-worms, 
making  observations  and  recording  the  daily 
results  of  his  experiments,  never  discouraged, 
or  at  least  overcoming  by  force  of  will  those 
moments  when  the  desired  goal  seemed  as  re- 
mote as  ever,  and  proceeding  to  begin  his  work 
over  again,  to  correct  his  opinions  in  accord- 
ance with  the  newly  observed  facts,  with  no  in- 
tention of  halting  until  he  should  hold  within 
his  powerful  grasp  the  indisputable  truth ! 

What  a  heroic  battle!  And  it  must  not  be 
forgotten  that  Pasteur  hardly  knew  what  silk- 
worms were  when  he  undertook  to  cure  them. 
The  celebrated  entomologist,  Henri  Fabre,  re- 
lates in  his  Souvenirs  the  details  of  a  visit  that 
Pasteur  paid  him  upon  arriving  in  the  South. 


90  PASTEUR 

Pasteur  requested  to  see  some  cocoons.  Fabre 
brought  him  a  handful.  The  illustrious  scien- 
tist took  them  in  his  hand,  turned  and  returned 
them,  shook  them  near  his  ear,  and  exclaimed: 

''Why,  there  is  something  inside!" 

'The  chrysalis,"  replied  Fabre. 

"The  chrysalis!    What's  that?" 

"A  sort  of  mummy  into  which  the  caterpillar 
changes  before  becoming  a  moth." 

"And  inside  of  every  cocoon  there  is  one  of 
those  things?" 

"Certainly,  it  is  to  protect  the  chrysalis  that 
the  caterpillar  spins  its  cocoon." 

"Ah!"  responded  Pasteur  simply. 

Is  not  this  an  admirable  scene,  as  described 
by  the  old  entomologist  Fabre?  Pasteur  knew 
nothing,  Pasteur  worked,  observed,  drew  deduc- 
tions, came  to  a  conclusion — and,  where  every 
one  else  had  failed,  he  alone  succeeded!  Such 
is  the  power  of  genius. 

The  work  upon  silk-worms  had  its  interrup- 
tions, for  Pasteur  tried  to  reconcile  his  personal 
researches  with  his  functions  as  director  of  sci- 


FOR   THE   NATIONAL   WEALTH     91 

entific  studies  at  the  Ecole  Normale.  But  in 
any  case  he  was  forced  to  abandon  them  in 
1867,  as  the  result  of  a  small  rebellion  among 
the  students,  due  to  a  discourse  delivered  by 
Sainte-Beuve  before  the  Senate  on  the  subject 
of  freedom  of  opinion.  The  school  had  been 
dismissed,  and  the  directors,  Nisard,  Pasteur 
and  Jacquinet,  replaced  in  the  course  of  reor- 
ganisation. 

The  Minister  of  Public  Instruction,  Duruy, 
appointed  Pasteur  professor  of  chemistry  at  the 
Sorbonne,  but  where  was  he  to  find  a  new 
laboratory?  The  only  adequate  one  at  the 
Ecole  Normale  was  occupied  by  Sainte-Claire 
Deville,  and  it  was  impossible  even  to  think  of 
returning  to  the  wretched  quarters  where  the 
experiments  on  spontaneous  generation  had 
been  made.  Then  it  was  that  Pasteur,  who,  in 
spite  of  his  personal  modesty,  was  conscious  of 
all  that  he  was  still  able  to  do  for  science,  re- 
quested that  a  laboratory  should  be  constructed 
for  him.  This  request  was  made  in  a  note  of 
such  an  exalted  tone  that  it  deserves  to  be  re- 


92  PASTEUR 

produced  in  its  entirety.  It  was  addressed  to 
Napoleon  III. 

''Sire,"  wrote  Pasteur,  ''my  researches  in  re- 
gard to  fermentations  and  the  role  played  by 
microscopic  organisms  have  opened  up  to 
physiological  chemistry  new  avenues  of  which 
the  agricultural  industries  and  the  study  of 
medicine  have  already  begun  to  reap  the  fruit. 
But  the  field  which  remains  to  be  traversed  is 
immense.  My  greatest  desire  would  be  to  ex- 
plore this  field  with  renewed  ardour,  without  be- 
ing hampered  by  the  insufficiency  of  material 
means. 

"Since  it  involves  seeking,  by  a  patient  and 
scientific  study  of  putrefaction,  for  certain  prin- 
ciples capable  of  guiding  us  to  a  discovery  of 
the  causes  of  putrid  or  contagious  diseases,  I 
should  like  to  be  installed  in  some  building 
where  the  laboratory  and  its  various  dependen- 
cies would  afford  enough  space  to  carry  on  the 
experiments  comfortably  and  without  danger 
to  health. 

"But  how  can  researches  be  conducted  in  re- 


FOR   THE   NATIONAL   WEALTH     93 

lation  to  gangrene,  the  viruses,  and  experi- 
ments in  inoculation,  unless  we  have  quarters 
suitable  for  receiving  animals,  whether  alive  or 
dead?  Butcher's  meat  brings  an  exorbitant 
price  in  Europe,  but  it  is  a  superfluity  in 
Buenos  Ayres.  How  is  it  possible,  in  a  cramped 
laboratory  lacking  in  the  necessary  resources, 
to  apply  all  the  various  tests  to  processes  which, 
perhaps,  render  the  preservation  and  transpor- 
tation of  meat  a  simple  matter?  The  disease 
popularly  known  as  sang  de  rate  (splenic  apo- 
plexy) causes  in  the  district  of  Beauce  an  an- 
nual loss  of  four  million  francs;  it  would  be 
indispensable  to  go  there,  no  doubt  for  several 
successive  seasons,  at  the  period  of  the  great- 
est heat,  and  spend  several  weeks  in  the  en- 
virons of  Charente,  in  order  to  carry  on  a  series 
of  minute  observations. 

"These  researches  and  a  thousand  others, 
which,  according  to  my  belief,  are  related  to  the 
great  phenomenon  of  the  transformation  of  or- 
ganic matter  after  death  and  the  enforced  re- 
turn of  every  living  thing  to  the  soil  and  the 


94  PASTEUR 

atmosphere,  are  compatible  only  with  the  in- 
stallation of  a  vast  laboratory.  The  time  has 
come  to  emancipate  the  experimental  sciences 
from  the  obstacles  which  trammel  them.''  ^ 

Napoleon  III  responded  to  this  eloquent  ap- 
peal in  which  Pasteur  outlined,  to  a  certain  ex- 
tent, the  programme  of  his  future  work.  He 
gave  an  order  to  Duruy  to  gratify  this  legiti- 
mate desire  of  the  scientist  and  the  Minister  of 
Public  Instruction  that  a  laboratory  should  be 
built  for  him  by  the  State  in  the  gardens  of  the 
Ecole  Normale.  But  they  needs  must  reckon 
with  administrative  delays!  The  plans  were 
handed  in  by  the  architect  of  the  Ecole,  M. 
Bouchot,  in  accordance  with  Pasteur's  specifi- 
cations, in  September,  1867,  but  the  actual 
work  was  delayed  until  a  year  later,  after  Pas- 
teur had  denounced,  in  a  pamphlet,  the  Budget 
de  la  Science,  the  lamentable  conditions  under 
which  French  scientists  were  obliged  to  conduct 
their  experiments,  as  compared  with  scientists 
in  other  countries,  and  notably  in  Germany. 

'Cited  by  M.  Vallery-Radot. 


FOR   THE   NATIONAL   WEALTH     95 

Meanwhile  a  catastrophe  was  about  to  befall 
Pasteur  and  even  menace  his  life.  On  the  19th 
of  October,  1868,  he  was  prostrated  by  an  at- 
tack of  paralysis  on  the  left  side,  and  so  gravely 
affected  that  for  the  first  twenty-four  hours  a 
fatal  termination  was  feared.  Pasteur  rallied 
from  the  crisis,  thanks  to  the  robustness  of  his 
constitution;  and  it  was  during  those  days  of 
physical  and  mental  suffering,  while  he  lay  mo- 
tionless, as  though  stricken  by  a  thunderbolt, 
that  he  revealed  most  vividly  the  loftiness  of 
his  thoughts,  the  beauty  of  his  character  and 
the  stoic  grandeur  of  his  principles.  On  the 
second  afternoon  of  his  illness  Dr.  Godelier, 
who  was  attending  him,  was  enabled  to  make 
the  following  announcement  in  his  health  bul- 
letin: "He  wishes  to  talk  about  science."  In 
reply  to  Sainte-Claire  Deville,  who  had  spoken 
some  affectionate  words  of  encouragement,  he 
uttered  the  following  admirable  phrase :  "I  re- 
gret to  die :  I  should  like  to  have  been  of  more 
service  to  my  country."  His  preoccupation  as 
a  scientist  never  for  an  instant  left  him,  as  Dr. 


96  PASTEUR 

Godelier  himself  attested,  and  eight  days  after 
his  attack  he  dictated  a  note  to  M.  Gernez,  his 
assistant,  in  relation  to  the  diseases  of  silk- 
worms. 

Pasteur  was  surrounded  with  the  most  de- 
voted care  by  his  family,  and  also  by  his  pupils, 
who  loved  him  as  they  might  have  loved  a 
father  who  was  somewhat  cold,  somewhat  dis- 
tant, but  who  hid  beneath  an  external  reserve 
a  warm  heart  ever  ready  to  defend  his  friends. 
Messrs.  Gernex,  Duclaux,  Raulin,  Didon  and 
Bertin  took  turns  in  watching  beside  him,  anx- 
iously following  the  successive  phases  of  his  ill- 
ness. The  whole  scientific  world  was  troubled, 
as  though  facing  the  possibility  of  a  great  dis- 
aster, and  Napoleon  III  himself  demanded 
news  every  morning. 

Six  weeks  after  his  attack  Pasteur  was  able 
to  rise,  and  entered  upon  his  convalescence.  He 
had  been  affected  badly  by  the  stoppage  of  the 
work  upon  his  laboratory  which  had  coincided 
with  the  beginning  of  his  illness,  but  by  the 
order  of  the  Emperor  it  had  been  resumed,  and 


FOR   THE   NATIONAL   WEALTH     97 

from  his  window  Pasteur  could  see  the  foun- 
dations beginning  to  rise.  The  hope  of  soon 
being  able  to  recommence  his  experiments  with 
the  help  of  material  means  such  as  he  had  long 
desired  hastened  his  cure.  While  he  rested  his 
body  he  went  into  a  sort  of  spiritual  retire- 
ment. He  read,  or  had  read  to  him,  the 
Thoughts  of  Pascal,  The  Knowledge  of  God 
and  of  Oneself,  and  the  Works  of  Nicole.  This 
man  of  science,  unique  in  his  qualities  as  an  ex- 
perimenter, who  would  abandon  any  and  every 
theory  in  the  face  of  facts,  always  separated 
science  from  Faith,  and  it  is  known  that  he  was 
a  practical  Catholic  to  the  day  of  his  death. 

As  soon  as  he  could  be  removed  Pasteur 
wished  to  return  to  the  south  of  France,  in  or- 
der to  continue  his  study  of  silk-worms,  and 
clear  up  certain  points  which  seemed  to  him  to 
be  still  obscure.  He  disregarded  all  suggestions 
of  prudence,  and,  in  spite  of  his  weakened  con- 
dition, he  installed  himself,  in  January, 
1869,  at  Saint-Hippolyte-du-Pont,  near  Alais. 
Shortly   after  his   arrival   Pasteur,   who   still 


98  PASTEUR 

moved  his  left  arm  and  leg  clumsily,  fell  to  the 
ground,  and  once  more  had  to  take  to  his  bed. 
But  he  none  the  less  continued  to  work,  dictat- 
ing the  experiments  to  be  made  to  his  col- 
laborators, Gernez,  Raulin  and  Maillet,  and  in- 
forming himself  each  day  of  the  observations 
they  had  gathered.  His  method  was  still  com- 
batted,  and,  while  certain  silk  producers  de- 
clared that  it  was  excellent,  certain  organised 
bodies  such  as  the  Silk  Commission  of  Lyons 
questioned  its  value.  Pasteur  forwarded  to  the 
members  of  this  commission  several  samples  of 
eggs,  indicating  in  advance  what  result  each 
of  the  samples  should  give.  The  boldness  of 
his  predictions  was  a  proof  of  his  certainty, 
and  as  a  matter  of  fact  they  were  realised. 
Nevertheless,  his  adversaries  refused  to  lay 
down  their  arms,  even  though  his  processes  be- 
gan to  be  employed  abroad,  and  the  Austrian 
government  awarded  him  a  prize  of  ten  thou- 
sand francs  in  recognition  of  the  services  he 
had  rendered  to  the  culture  of  silk-worms.  Not 
only  did  Pasteur  find  a  cure  for  pehrine,  but 


FOR   THE   NATIONAL   WEALTH     99 

also  for  another  disease  of  silk-worms,  known 
as  flacherie,  which  was  almost  as  much  dreaded 
as  the  former. 

Marechal  Vaillant,  Minister  of  the  House  to 
Napoleon  III,  decided  to  try  the  Pasteur 
method  experimentally  in  one  of  the  domains  of 
the  Crown.  A  vast  property,  planted  with 
mulberry  trees,  was  chosen.  It  belonged  to  the 
Prince  Imperial,  and  was  situated  at  Villa  Vi- 
centina,  in  Austrian  Friuli.  Pasteur  set  forth 
in  November,  1869,  with  healthy  eggs  obtained 
by  his  process  of  cellular  breeding  from  three 
cultivators,  Messrs.  Raybaud,  Milhau  and 
Gourdin;  and  immediately  upon  arriving  he 
set  to  work.  For  the  previous  ten  years  the 
imperial  domain,  infected  with  pebrine  and 
flacherie,  had  produced  nothing,  while  the  har- 
vest resulting  from  Pasteur's  eggs  gave  a  net 
profit  of  twenty-two  thousand  francs.  It 
formed  a  neat  little  surplus  for  the  purse  of  the 
Prince  Imperial. 

Pasteur  remained  for  eight  months  at  Villa 
Vicentina,  and  there  put  the  finishing  touches  to 


100  PASTEUR 

his  work,  in  which  he  systematised  all  his  pre- 
vious studies  on  silk- worms.  His  former  mas- 
ter, Dumas,  had  the  pleasure  of  introducing  to 
the  Academy  of  Sciences  at  a  meeting  held  the 
11th  of  April,  1870,  and  of  pronouncing  the 
eulogy  on  his  Studies  on  the  Disease  of  Silk- 
worms, a  practical  and  assured  Method  of  com- 
batting it  and  preventing  its  Retur7i.  The 
Academy  had  spoken,  the  victory  was  com- 
plete. 

Pasteur  had  been  made  Senator  of  the  Em- 
pire by  a  decree  issued  the  previous  July,  and 
he  was  returning  to  France,  impatient  to  be- 
gin new  researches,  when  he  learned  at  Stras- 
burg,  with  an  inexpressible  sinking  of  the  heart, 
that  war  had  been  declared.  This  meant  the 
postponement  of  all  his  projects,  of  all  those  re- 
searches which  he  wished  to  undertake  for  the 
benefit  of  humanity.  The  scientists  no  longer 
had  the  floor! 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  SPIRIT  OF  PATRIOTISM 

PASTEUR  was  an  ardent  patriot,  and  the 
disasters  of  France  affected  him  pro- 
foundly. Determined  though  he  was  to  work, 
in  spite  of  the  war — since  he  had  nothing  else 
than  his  work  to  give  to  his  country — it  was, 
nevertheless,  hard  for  him  to  reconcile  himself, 
so  keenly  did  he  share  the  high  tension  of  pub- 
lic feeling.  Retiring  to  his  boyhood  home  at 
Arbois,  he  sought  to  content  himself  with 
studying  the  fermentation  of  tan  bark;  yet  all 
the  while  he  was  on  the  alert  for  news  and 
quivering  in  unison  with  the  soul  of  the  nation 
at  the  announcement  of  each  new  defeat.  When 
Paris  was  bombarded,  and  shells  reached  the 
Museum  of  Natural  History,  Chevreul's  elo- 
quent and  indignant  protest  in  the  name  of  the 
101 


102  PASTEUR 

Academy  of  Sciences  caused  Pasteur  to  regret 
that  he  had  not  been  in  Paris,  in  order  to  sign 
it,  together  with  his  colleagues  who  were  pres- 
ent. But  he  remembered  that  in  1868  he  had 
received  a  diploma  from  the  University  of 
Bonn,  conferring  upon  him  the  honorary  de- 
gree of  Doctor  of  Medicine,  in  recognition  of  his 
brilliant  work,  and  he  decided  to  return  it  to 
the  Dean.  He  accompanied  it  with  a  letter  pul- 
sating throughout  with  the  highest  kind  of 
patriotism. 

To  Monsieur  the  Dean  of  the  Faculty  of  Medicine 
at  Bonn  [Rhenish  Prussia) 

"Arbois,  Jura,  January  18th,  1871. 
''Monsieur  the  Dean:  In  1868  the  Faculty  of 
Medicine  of  the  University  of  Bonn  did  me  the 
honour  to  confer  upon  me  voluntarily  the  degree  of 
Doctor  of  Medicine,  in  recognition  of  my  work  in 
regard  to  fermentations  and  the  role  played  by 
microscopic  organisms.  Among  all  the  distinctions 
bestowed  upon  me  by  reason  of  the  discoveries 
which  I  have  been  privileged  to  make  since  enter- 
ing upon  my  scientific  career,  twenty-two  years 
ago,  there  is  none,  i  acknowledge,  which  caused  me 
greater  satisfaction.    It  was,  in  my  eyes,  the  con- 


THE   SPIRIT   OF   PATRIOTISM  103 

firmation  of  a  secret  hope,  of  the  truth  of  which  I 
felt  more  and  more  convinced,  namely,  that  my  re- 
searches were  opening  up  new  horizons  to  the  study 
of  medicine. 

'^I  even  hastened  to  frame  under  glass  that  hon- 
orary degree  which  bore  witness  to  the  decision  of 
your  faculty,  and  I  adorned  the  wall  of  my  private 
oflBce  with  it.  Today  the  sight  of  this  same  parch- 
ment has  become  odious  to  me,  and  I  feel  that  it  is 
an  insult  to  have  my  name,  with  the  qualification  of 
virum  clarissimum  which  you  bestowed  upon  it, 
placed  under  the  auspices  of  a  name  condemned 
henceforth  to  the  execration  of  my  country,  that  of 
rex  Guilelmus. 

"While  protesting  loudly  my  profound  respect 
towards  you  and  all  the  other  celebrated  professors 
who  signed  their  names  at  the  foot  of  the  document 
representing  the  decision  of  the  members  of  your 
order,  I  must  still  obey  the  voice  of  my  conscience 
and  beg  you  to  erase  my  name  from  the  archives  of 
your  Faculty  and  to  take  back  this  diploma  as  a 
sign  of  the  indignation  aroused  in  a  French  savant 
by  the  barbarity  and  hypocrisy  of  the  man  who, 
for  the  sake  of  satisfying  a  criminal  pride,  obsti- 
nately insists  upon  the  massacre  of  two  great  na- 
tions. 

"Since  the  conference  of  Ferrieres  France  has 
sought  for  the  respect  of  human  dignity,  and  Prus- 


104  PASTEUR 

sia  for  the  triumph  of  the  most  abominable  of  lies, 
namely,  that  the  future  peace  of  Germany  depends 
upon  the  dismemberment  of  France,  although  every 
sane  man  knows  that  the  conquest  of  Alsace  and 
Lorraine  is  simply  a  prize  of  war  carried  to  the  bit- 
ter end.  Woe  to  the  people  of  Germany  if,  being 
nearer  than  we  to  feudal  servitude,  they  do  not 
understand  that  France,  while  possessing  the  lands 
of  Alsace  and  Lorraine,  is  not  mistress  of  the  con- 
sciences of  their  inhabitants.  Savoy  would  still  be 
a  part  of  Piedmont  if  its  inhabitants  had  not  con- 
sented, by  a  free  vote,  to  become  French.  Such 
is  the  modern  right  of  civilised  nations,  which  your 
king  is  trampling  under  foot,  and  in  defence  of 
which  France  has  risen. 

''Therefore,  there  is  perhaps  no  epoch  of  her  his- 
tory in  which  France  has  better  deserved  to  be 
called  the  great  nation,  the  initiator  of  progress, 
the  guiding  light  of  other  races.  Here  is  a  whole 
people  which  has  arisen  against  you,  ready  to  push 
onward  to  the  ends  of  the  earth  and  to  dare  every- 
thing, because  of  her  conviction  of  the  justice  and 
sanctity  of  her  cause. 

"Kindly  accept.  Monsieur  the  Dean,  on  behalf  of 
yourself  and  your  distinguished  colleagues,  the  ex- 
pression of  my  sentiments  of  high  consideration. 
"Louis  Pasteur, 

''Member  of  the  Institute" 


THE    SPIRIT    OF   PATRIOTISM   105 

In  the  white  heat  of  conflict  between  two 
powerful  nations  this  reasonable  and  humane 
letter,  couched  in  terms  of  such  noble  pride, 
could  not  be  understood.  Doctor  Neumann, 
Dean  of  the  Faculty  of  Bonn,  replied  harshly, 
with  an  affectation  of  disdain,  under  which  he 
betrayed  the  irritation  caused  by  this  great  and 
well-merited  lesson.  Pasteur,  strong  in  the 
conviction  that  he  and  his  nation  were  in  the 
right,  wrote  a  second  letter,  no  longer  indig- 
nant, but  saddened  and  deploring  the  murder- 
ousness  of  war,  which  puts  a  barrier  between 
men  who  were  born  to  understand  each  other 
and  to  join  forces  in  the  search  of  happiness. 
He  wrote: 

''Monsieur  the  Dean:  In  re-reading  your  let- 
ter and  my  own,  I  feel  sick  at  heart  to  think  that 
men  like  you  and  myself,  who  have  consecrated 
their  lives  to  a  search  after  the  truth  and  to  the 
progress  of  the  human  mind,  could  address  each 
other  in  such  terms,  and  based,  for  my  own  part, 
upon  such  acts.  Nevertheless,  we  have  there  one 
other  result  of  the  character  imprinted  upon  this 
war  by  your  Emperor. 

"You  speak  to  me  of  degradation,  Monsieur  the 


106  PASTEUR 

Dean.  There  is  degradation,  be  assured  of  that, 
and  there  will  continue  to  be,  down  to  the  remotest 
epochs  of  time,  attached  to  the  memory  of  those 
who  began  the  bombardment  of  Paris  at  a  date 
when  capitulation  through  famine  was  inevitable, 
and  who  continued  this  savage  act  when  it  had  be- 
come evident  to  everyone  that  it  would  not  hasten 
by  a  single  hour  the  surrender  of  the  heroic  city, 

*' Louis  Pasteur." 

To  the  anguish  of  patriotism  there  were 
added  private  anxieties,  for  Pasteur's  son,  who 
was  only  eighteen  years  old,  was  serving  as 
quartermaster  in  the  Army  of  the  East,  under 
command  of  Bourbaki.  Having  been  for  a  long 
time  without  news,  Pasteur  set  out  to  seek  for 
him  among  the  demoralised  troops  in  full  re- 
treat and  destined  finally  to  take  refuge  in 
Switzerland.  He  had  the  good  fortune  to  find 
him  in  that  disorganised  crowd,  emaciated,  ex- 
hausted, but  still  living.  After  a  few  days  of 
repose  at  Geneva,  this  son,  well  worthy  of  his 
father,  returned  with  him  to  France  and  re- 
entered the  service  in  the  Army  of  National 
Defense. 


THE   SPIRIT   OF   PATRIOTISM  107 

International  war  was  soon  followed  by  civil 
war,  and  Pasteur,  being  unable  either  to  enter 
Paris  or  to  return  to  Arbois,  which  was  occupied 
by  the  enemy,  proceeded  to  install  himself,  early 
in  1871,  in  the  house  of  his  friend  and  col- 
laborator, Emile  Duclaux,  who  at  that  time  was 
professor  of  chemistry  in  the  Faculty  of  Cler- 
mont-Ferrand. He  wrote  to  him  on  the  29th 
of  March,  1871 :  "I  have  my  head  filled  with 
the  finest  projects  for  work,  but  the  war  has 
forced  my  brain  to  lie  fallow.  I  feel  ready  now 
to  become  productive  again,  although,  alas,  I 
may  be  deceiving  myself!  In  any  case  I  shall 
try.  Ah,  why  am  I  not  rich,  a  millionaire?  I 
should  then  say  to  you,  and  to  Raulin  and  Ger- 
nez  and  Van  Tiegham,  and  the  rest,  ^Come !  we 
are  going  to  transform  the  world  by  our  dis- 
coveries!' How  fortunate  you  are  to  be  young 
and  in  good  health !  Oh,  if  I  could  only  recom- 
mence a  new  life  of  study  and  toil!  Poor 
France!  Dear  mother  land!  If  I  could  only 
contribute  to  relieve  you  from  your  disasters!" 

At  Clermont-Ferrand  Pasteur  hesitated  be- 


108  PASTEUR 

tween  several  paths.  Should  he  continue  to  de- 
vote himself  to  silk-worms,  or  commence  some 
new  researches?  Chance  and  the  desire  to  do 
away  with  French  consumption  of  an  almost 
exclusive  product  of  German  industry  turned 
his  attention  to  the  study  of  beer.  Why  should 
we  not  make  good  beer  in  France?  Pasteur 
asked  himself,  and  he  straightway  set  to  work 
to  find  an  answer  to  his  own  question.  There 
was  a  small  brewery  at  Chamelieres,  near  Cler- 
mont, and  it  was  there,  at  the  home  of  the  pro- 
prietor, M.  Kulm,  that  he  conducted  his  first 
experiments,  afterwards  verified  in  Duclaux's 
laboratory,  in  the  Faculty  of  Sciences.  The  mi- 
croscopic examination  of  malts,  yeasts  and 
beers  soon  convinced  him  that  the  latter  ac- 
quired a  bad  taste  through  diseases  analogous 
to  those  of  wines,  and  due  to  certain  microbes. 
In  brewing,  just  as  in  all  industries  where  fer- 
mentation plays  the  principal  role,  the  manu- 
facture was  purely  empirical,  without  method 
or  science,  and  the  results,  whether  good  or 
bad,  were  often  due  to  pure  chance.    Pasteur 


THE   SPIRIT   OF   PATRIOTISM  109 

resolved  to  place  brewing  on  a  firm  basis^  es- 
tablished through  experiments,  to  the  end  that 
it  should  yield  nothing  but  perfect  products. 

Since  beer  was  spoiled  by  the  introduction  of 
harmful  germs,  and  its  quality  corresponded  to 
the  quality  of  the  yeast  which  caused  the  fer- 
mentation, it  was  necessary,  on  the  one  hand, 
to  eliminate  germs,  and,  on  the  other,  to  obtain 
a  thoroughly  lively  and  perfectly  pure  yeast. 
These  were  the  problems  to  which  Pasteur  ap- 
plied himself,  and  during  his  sojourn  at  Cler- 
mont he  manufactured  beer  according  to  his 
own  rules,  and  was  able  to  send  a  dozen  bottles 
of  it  to  Dumas ! 

But  the  brewery  at  Chamelieres  was  too  re- 
stricted a  field.  In  September,  1871,  he  set  out 
for  England,  and  he  reduced  the  great  London 
brewers  to  a  point  of  stupefaction  by  pro- 
nouncing upon  the  quality  of  their  different 
beers,  those  that  were  good  and  those  that  were 
bad,  simply  by  examining  them  under  a  micro- 
scope. With  their  practical  temperament  the 
English  grasped  the  great  benefit  which  their 


no  PASTEUR 

manufacture  could  derive  from  the  method  of 
the  French  scientist,  and  the  microscope  be- 
came a  frequently  consulted  instrument  in  their 
breweries. 

Upon  returning  to  Paris,  and  once  more  in- 
stalled in  his  laboratory  at  the  Ecole  Normale, 
Pasteur  still  continued  his  studies  of  beer.  The 
problem  to  be  solved  was  a  very  delicate  one. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  a  beer  may  be  good,  even 
perfect,  and  yet  be  unpalatable,  for  the  ques- 
tion of  taste  intervenes,  quite  aside  from  the 
quality  of  the  manufacture. 

^'Now,  for  the  purpose  of  carrying  on  this 
work  of  adaptation  and  of  detail,"  writes  M. 
Duclaux,  ^Tasteur  had  none  of  the  essential 
requisites.  He  did  not  like  beer,  and,  although 
by  force  of  will,  he  succeeded  in  acquiring  a 
sufficiently  trained  palate  and  sense  of  taste,  he 
remained  unable  to  detect  differences  pointed 
out  by  the  brewers  themselves,  and  which  he 
was  sometimes  amazed  to  find  keenly  appre- 
ciated by  his  friend  Bertin,  who  lived  next  to 
him  in  the  Ecole  Normale  (as  assistant  direc- 


THE    SPIRIT    OF   PATRIOTISM   111 

tor),  and  who  was  frequently  invited  into  the 
laboratory  for  conferences  over  the  relative 
flavour  of  samples.  In  the  face  of  the  enthusi- 
astic appreciations  sometimes  expressed  by  his 
friend,  Pasteur  remained  bewildered,  feeling 
that  they  were  leading  him  into  regions  where 
he  did  not  like  to  venture,  and  he  would  forth- 
with have  renounced  this  labour  of  Sisyphus, 
if  he  had  not  had  the  imprudence  to  solicit  the 
pecuniary  aid  of  a  certain  society  for  investi- 
gations, a  very  large  and  generous  society, 
towards  which  he  had  thus  contracted  a  moral 
obligation  to  succeed  in  his  enterprise. 

In  order  to  arrive  at  the  conclusion  which  he 
wished  the  laboratory  did  not  suflice  his  needs. 
Accordingly,  Pasteur  went  to  continue  his  re- 
searches at  the  great  breweries  belonging  to  the 
Tourtel  brothers  at  Tantonville.  Above  all  else, 
he  recommended  the  most  scrupulous  cleanli- 
ness in  all  the  manipulations  and  all  the  imple- 
ments of  manufacture. 

Let  us  here  introduce  a  parenthesis  for  the 
purpose  of  pointing  out  the  extent  to  which 


112  PASTEUR 

Pasteur  insisted  upon  cleanliness  in  all  the  de- 
tails of  daily  life.  He  never  seated  himself  at 
table  without  carefully  wiping  his  plates,  his 
glass,  his  knife  and  fork,  examining  them  all 
with  the  most  severe  attention.  He  never  ate 
fruit  that  was  not  peeled,  and  he  even  scraped 
off  the  crust  from  his  bread,  for  fear  that  it 
might  be  infected  with  microbes.  These  habits 
were  well  known  to  his  family,  but  they  could 
not  have  failed  to  astonish  his  hostesses  when 
he  dined  away  from  home. 

After  a  short  sojourn  at  the  Tourtel  Brothers' 
brewery,  in  company  with  his  assistant,  M. 
Grenet,  Pasteur  announced  that  all  the  diseases 
of  beer  arose  from  microbes  which  could  be 
avoided  through  precautions  in  the  course  of 
manufacture,  that  it  was  necessary  to  make 
careful  selection  of  yeasts,  and  that,  if  bottled 
beer  was  heated  to  the  point  of  122  degrees 
Fahrenheit,  it  was  rendered  unalterable. 

His  method  and  his  processes  have  enabled 
France  to  cope  successfully  with  foreign  com- 
petition, and  the  congress  of  French  brewers, 


THE   SPIRIT   OF   PATRIOTISM  113 

held  in  1889,  attributed  all  the  merit  of  their 
products  to  his  labours. 

After  the  close  of  the  war  the  world  of  sci- 
ence so  highly  appreciated  the  genius  of  Pas- 
teur that  the  celebrated  Englishman,  Huxley, 
did  not  hesitate  to  declare  that  his  discoveries 
were  worth  the  five  billion  ransom  of  France. 
And  yet  this  was  only  the  first  part  of  his  work, 
the  part  which,  according  to  Duclaux,  had  won 
him  fame,  while  now  he  was  about  to  enter 
upon  the  second  part — devoted  to  human  mala- 
dies— which  was  destined  to  assure  him  im- 
mortality. 


CHAPTER   VI 

THE  CURATIVE  POISON 

INNOVATORS,  whether  in  the  arts  or  the 
sciences,  are  combatted  at  the  outset.  Pas- 
teur was  not  destined  to  escape  the  general 
rule,  which  demands  that  all  truth  shall  be 
forced  upon  us.  In  spite  of  the  evidence  which 
he  had  obtained  in  support  of  his  theories  from 
long  and  difficult  experiments  with  fermenta- 
tions, a  group  of  scientists,  and  they  by  no 
means  the  lesser  lights,  refused  to  accept  his 
conclusions.  Pie  had  to  face  a  controversy  with 
Trecul,  who  maintained  that  microscopic  or- 
ganisms could  transform  themselves,  one  into 
another,  and  he  must  needs  demonstrate  that, 
contrary  to  this  opinion,  they  remained  fixed 
and  with  a  specific  character.  In  the  course  of 
the  study  necessitated  by  this  discussion  he 
114 


I 


THE  CURATIVE  POISON         115 

made  experiments  on  anaerobic  (without  air) 
and  aerobic  (with  air)  forms  of  life,  and  he  dis- 
covered that  a  certain  number  of  these  organ- 
isms could  pass  from  one  mode  of  life  to  the 
other  with  an  accompanying  change  in  form 
and  function. 

But  these  studies  of  fermentations,  through 
which  he  was  destined  to  refute  Claude  Ber- 
nard, Berthelot,  etc.,  studies  which  he  pursued 
with  unflagging  energy,  and  which  were  shed- 
ding light  upon  phenomena  that  had  remained 
obscure  until  he  had  given  the  key  to  their  in- 
terpretation, did  not  prevent  him  from  ponder- 
ing over  the  role  played  by  microbes  in  infec- 
tious diseases  or  from  beginning  experiments 
concerning  them. 

Pasteur  had  been  elected  to  full  membership 
of  the  Academy  of  Medicine  in  1873,  and  it  was 
thenceforward  there  that  he  waged  his  battles 
against  prejudice,  hostility  and  unfairness,  in 
order  to  achieve  the  triumph  of  ideas  which 
brought  with  them  the  most  complete  revolu- 
tion that  had  ever  taken  place  in  medicine. 


116  PASTEUR 

Along  the  curve  of  an  inspired  path,  and  with 
no  break  in  the  continuity,  he  had  passed  from 
crystals  to  fermentations,  and  from  fermenta- 
tions to  diseases  of  microbic  origin.  But  these 
divisions  are  still  in  a  measure  inexact,  for, 
within  his  vast  brain  that  was  forever  working 
all  his  projects  for  experimentation,  all  his  ideas 
centred  upon  germs.  Accordingly  he  was  able 
to  say  before  the  Academy  of  Medicine  in  1873 : 
^'Is  it  not  evident  that  all  the  researches  to 
which  I  have  devoted  myself  for  seventeen 
years,  regardless  of  the  efforts  they  have  cost 
me,  are  the  products  of  the  same  ideas,  the 
same  principles,  forced  by  incessant  toil  to  yield 
constantly  new  results?  The  best  proof  that 
an  investigator  is  on  the  road  to  truth  is  the 
uninterrupted  fertility  of  his  labours." 

For  years  Pasteur  was  forced  to  fight  his  bat- 
tles in  the  very  midst  of  the  Academy  of  Medi- 
cine, and  he  did  so  with  a  vigorous  and  dogged 
energy  so  long  as  he  was  defending  the  truth 
contained  in  his  discoveries.  His  work,  for  that 
matter,  controverted  though  it  was,  had  long 


EMILE   DUCLAUX   (after  BORDES) 

The  favorite  disciple  of  the  great  scientist  and  the  first  director  of  the 

Institute  in  the  Rue  Dutot,  who  collaborated  in  Pasteur's  researches 

and  carried  on  his  work. 


THE   CURATIVE   POISON        117 

since  passed  beyond  the  limits  of  scientific  cir- 
cles, and  in  1874  the  National  Assembly,  wish- 
ing to  pay  honour  to  his  rare  merit,  awarded 
him  a  national  recompense,  one  which  had  been 
granted  only  twice  before  within  the  century, 
in  1839  to  Daguerre  and  Niepce,  and  in  1845 
to  the  engineer  Vicat.  Paul  Bert  was  appointed 
to  make  the  report.  In  the  course  of  it  he  said : 
"The  discoveries  of  M.  Pasteur,  after  having 
shed  new  light  upon  the  obscure  question  of 
fermentations  and  of  the  mode  in  which  micro- 
scopic organisms  make  their  appearance,  have 
revolutionised  certain  branches  of  business  in- 
dustry, agriculture  and  pathology.  One  is 
struck  with  admiration  when  one  realises  that 
so  many  results  and  such  widely  different  ones 
have  all  been  derived,  through  an  unbroken 
chain  of  facts,  followed  up  step  by  step,  leav- 
ing nothing  to  conjecture,  from  an  original  the- 
oretical study  as  to  the  manner  in  which  tar- 
taric acid  deflects  polarised  light.  Never  before 
has  that  famous  epigram,  'Genius  is  patience/ 
received  so  splendid  a  confirmation. 


118  PASTEUR 

^^It  is  this  admirable  combination  of  theoreti- 
cal and  practical  work  which  the  Government 
proposes  that  you  should  honour  with  a  na- 
tional recompense.  Your  Committee  unani- 
mously approves  this  proposition. 

'The  recompense  specified  consists  of  a  life 
pension  of  twelve  thousand  francs;  this  sum 
represents  very  nearly  the  salary  attached  to 
the  professorship  in  the  Sorbonne,  from  which 
illness  has  obliged  M.  Pasteur  to  resign." 

In  this  same  report  Paul  Bert  paid  tribute  to 
the  disinterestedness  of  Pasteur^  whose  discov- 
eries had  enriched  France  to  the  extent  of  un- 
numbered millions,  without  its  having  occurred 
to  him  to  acquire  any  personal  benefit  from 
them.  The  motion  was  carried  by  532  affirma- 
tive votes  against  24  negative  ones.  It  was  an 
overwhelming  majority. 

Having  once  turned  his  attention  to  infec- 
tious diseases,  Pasteur  assiduously  frequented 
the  Academy  of  Medicine.  Becoming  con- 
vinced that  the  majority  of  deaths  were  caused 
by  wounds  coming  in  contact  with  external 


THE  CURATIVE  POISON         119 

germs,  he  recommended  to  the  operating  sur- 
geons a  method  of  antiseptic  dressing,  based 
upon  his  discovery  of  microbes  in  the  air.  The 
great  English  surgeon,  Lister,  employed  a  sim- 
ilar method,  and  obtained  excellent  results. 
The  French  physicians  who  accepted  Pasteur's 
method  saw  the  percentage  of  deaths  resulting 
from  operations  fall  off  with  great  rapidity.  It 
was  not  adopted  without  opposition,  but  its 
efficacy  was  soon  recognised ;  and  to-day  there  is 
no  surgeon  who  does  not  follow  out  all  of  Pas- 
teur's careful  injunctions,  the  heating  of  instru- 
ments, the  sterilisation  of  dressings,  antiseptic 
washing  of  the  wound,  etc. 

It  was  in  1876  that  science  escaped  a  real 
danger.  Pasteur,  yielding  to  the  solicitations 
of  a  number  of  electors,  presented  himself  as 
candidate  at  the  election  of  senators  from  the 
Jura.  He  made  his  electoral  campaign  with  the 
same  seriousness  that  he  displayed  in  his  labor- 
atory, proclaiming  in  his  sign  bills  and  circu- 
lars that  his  only  reason  for  wishing  to  be 
elected  was  that  he  might  have  further  oppor- 


120  PASTEUR 

tunity  to  serve  France.  M.  Grevy  presented 
himself  in  opposition  at  Lons-le-Saulnier,  and 
Pasteur  received  only  62  votes.  He  cherished 
no  grudge  because  of  this  defeat,  but  he  de- 
clared that  his  incursion  into  the  domain  of 
politics  had  been  a  mistake,  and  he  promptly 
returned  to  his  studies. 

He  had,  for  that  matter,  quite  enough  fco  do 
in  defending  his  own  scientific  work,  which  had 
been  newly  attacked  just  as  he  began  to  believe 
that  it  had  been  definitely  established.  Bas- 
tian,  for  instance,  despite  the  convincing  na- 
ture of  his  experiments  on  spontaneous  genera- 
tion, disputed  his  results,  and  Pasteur,  though 
he  might  well  have  rested  on  his  earlier  la- 
bours, repeated  them,  if  possible  with  even 
greater  care,  in  order  to  be  able  to  answer  him. 
This  experimental  method,  this  close  scrutiny 
of  facts  which  formed  the  basis  of  all  Pasteur's 
discoveries,  this  constant  anxiety  to  leave  noth- 
ing doubtful  or  unfinished,  has  lately  been  tes- 
tified to  by  M.  Denys  Cochin,  a  member  of  the 
Academie  Frangaise  and  a  deputy,  on  the  occa- 


THE    CURATIVE    POISON         121 

sion  of  the  discussion  before  the  Chamber  in 
regard  to  powder  for  the  navy.  'T  have  studied 
chemistry  to  some  extent/'  he  said,  ^'and  I  recall 
a  remark  once  made  to  me  by  one  of  our  most 
illustrious  scientists.  I  had  finished  some  small 
research,  the  report  on  which  I  submitted  to 
M.  Pasteur.  It  began  with  a  phrase  that  is 
common  enough  in  manuals  of  chemistry :  'We 
know  that  .  .  .'  'What  do  we  know?' 
Pasteur  said  to  me,  'We  know  nothing  at  all.' 

"I  replied,  'Excuse  me,  Monsieur,  but  the 
fact  I  cited  was  taken  from  one  of  your  own 
writings.'  I  thought  I  had  the  best  of  it,  but 
Pasteur  merely  rejoined,  'That  has  nothing  to 
do  with  it;  you  ought  to  have  verified  me.'  " 

Therein  lies  Pasteur's  whole  secret:  he  al- 
ways repeated  his  experiments  over  and  over 
until  he  was  certain  of  the  truths  that  they  con- 
tained; and  it  was  by  this  means  that  he  tri- 
umphed over  his  adversaries.  His  controversy 
with  Bastian,  together  with  a  posthumous  pa- 
per by  Claude  Bernard  on  ferm^entaticns,  led 
him  to  investigate  the  fermentation  of  grapes. 


122  PASTEUR 

Having  constructed  a  hot-house  on  a  small 
property  that  he  owned  near  Arbois,  Pasteur 
succeeded  in  demonstrating  that  the  fermenta- 
tion was  due  exclusively  to  germs  which  made 
their  appearance  on  the  surface  of  the  grapes 
and  on  the  bark  of  the  vines  at  the  moment  of 
maturity,  and  that  neither  verjuice  nor  the 
must  of  the  grape  isolated  from  the  skins  and 
stems  can  undergo  fermentation. 

But,  although  he  was  still  disputed,  he  had 
the  keen  pleasure  of  seeing  certain  of  his 
methods  eagerly  adopted  by  the  big  industries. 
During  a  visit  to  a  vast  Italian  silk-worm  es- 
tablishment, on  the  occasion  of  a  congress  of 
silk  producers  held  at  Milan,  he  beheld  his  own 
name  inscribed  across  the  pediment  of  the 
building,  in  conspicuous  homage  to  the  services 
he  had  rendered  to  that  industry.  On  this  same 
occasion  they  showed  him  the  marvellous  re- 
sults obtained  by  his  process  of  cellular  culture, 
practically  carried  out  by  young  girls  who  had 
acquired  great  expertness  in  the  use  of  the  mi- 
croscope for  detecting  corpusculous  moths. 


THE    CURATIVE    POISON         123 

As  in  the  case  of  the  fermentation  of  grapes, 
this  was  a  side  issue  of  his  theory  of  germs,  but 
at  this  epoch  he  was  studying  them  mainly 
from  the  pathological  point  of  view,  and  we 
know  that  he  was  interested  above  all  in  dis- 
eases of  a  microbic  origin.  There  again  he  was 
destined  to  wage  stout  battles  against  routine 
and  prejudice,  even  within  the  walls  of  the 
Academy  of  Medicine. 

It  was  the  disease  of  anthrax,  which  annually 
decimated  the  herds  and  flocks  of  France,  that 
Pasteur  chose  as  the  first  point  of  attack.  Da- 
vaine  had  previously  discovered  that  the  blood 
of  animals  infected  with  this  disease  contained 
little  rectilinear,  stick-like  organisms,  a  species 
of  vibrion  which  he  named  from  their  form 
bacterides,  and  which  were  the  cause  of  the  dis- 
ease :  but  he  had  been  unable  to  defend  his  con- 
clusions against  Messrs.  Gaillard  and  Leplat, 
professors  at  Val-de-Grace,  and  Paul  Bert,  who 
all  maintained,  after  making  experiments,  that 
anthrax  came  from  a  virus,  and  not  from  the 
bacterides  themselves.    It  was  precisely  at  this 


124  PASTEUR 

point  in  the  discussion,  with  the  two  sides 
steadfastly  maintaining  contradictory  opinions, 
each  supported  equally  by  facts,  that  Pasteur, 
in  collaboration  with  Messrs.  Joubert,  Cham- 
berland  and  Roux,  intervened  in  his  accustomed 
manner,  quite  simple,  quite  clear  and  rigor- 
ously scientific. 

Having  obtained  a  fresh  drop  of  blood  from 
an  animal  infected  with  anthrax,  Pasteur  culti- 
vated the  bacterides  in  artificial  mediums  by 
impregnating  each  new  medium  with  a  drop 
taken  from  the  preceding  culture,  so  that  by 
the  time  of  the  tenth  culture  he  obtained  pure 
bacterides.  When  these  were  used  for  inocu- 
lation they  produced  anthrax,  without  the  aid 
of  the  original  drop  of  blood,  which  had  dis- 
appeared through  being  diluted  to  such  a  de- 
gree as  to  be  imperceptible  in  the  later  cultures. 
This  amounted  to  a  complete  confirmation  of 
Davaine's  opinion,  that  these  bacterides  were 
the  cause  of  the  disease  of  anthrax.  In  order 
to  render  his  experiment  more  decisive  Pasteur 
established  a  counter-proof  by  inoculating  his 


THE   CURATIVE    POISON         125 

medium  with  a  culture  from  which  he  had  elim- 
inated the  bacterides  by  means  of  filtering  it 
through  plaster,  and  the  resulting  liquid  failed 
to  produce  anthrax. 

Pursuing  his  studies  further,  he  demon- 
strated that  Messrs.  Gaillard  and  Leplat,  who 
asserted  that  they  had  produced  anthrax  in  ani- 
mals by  means  of  blood  which  contained  no 
bacterides,  had  been  mistaken,  and  that  what 
they  had  really  done  was  to  produce  a  different 
disease  by  inoculating  with  a  new  species  of 
microbe,  which  he  named  the  septic  vihrion. 
In  like  manner  he  refuted  Paul  Bert,  who,  after 
having  destroyed  the  bacteria  of  anthrax  by 
means  of  compressed  oxygen,  claimed  that  the 
blood  thus  deprived  of  them  could  nevertheless 
cause  anthrax;  Pasteur  showed  that  this  blood 
still  contained  the  germs  or  spores  of  bacter- 
ides, which  had  greater  resistant  powers  than 
the  bacterides  themselves,  and  that  it  was  from 
them  that  these  cases  of  anthrax  came,  so  that 
in  any  case  it  was  caused  either  by  the  bac- 
terides or  by  their  spores.    This  amounted  to  a 


126  PASTEUR 

definite  proof  of  the  parasitic  character  of  this 
infectious  disease. 

But  how  was  anthrax  communicated  to  ani- 
mals, and  was  there  any  hope  of  protecting 
them  from  it?  Again,  as  in  the  case  of  the  silk- 
worms, the  Minister  of  Agriculture  commis- 
sioned Pasteur  to  m.ake  a  study  of  this 'evil, 
which  ravaged  the  cattle-raising  districts,  caus- 
ing losses  v/hich  amounted  annually  to  tens  of 
millions.  Nothing  was  known  beyond  the  fact 
that  the  animals  who  were  pastured  in  certain 
fields  that  were  known  as  had  fields  became  in- 
fected with  anthrax.  Pasteur  installed  himself 
in  the  environs  of  Chartres  and  began  his  re- 
searches. He  was  accompanied  by  M.  Roux, 
who  bears  witness  to  the  perspicacity  of  his  ob- 
servations conducted  on  the  spot: 

^The  harvest  had  been  gathered,"  he  wrote, 
"and  nothing  remained  but  the  stubble.  Pas- 
teur's attention  was  drawn  to  a  certain  portion 
of  the  field,  because  of  the  different  colouring 
of  the  earth.  The  owner  explained  that  this 
was  the  spot  where  they  had  buried  the  sheep 


THE  CURATIVE  POISON  127 

which  had  died  of  anthrax  the  preceding  year. 
Pasteur,  who  always  examined  things  closely, 
noticed  on  the  surface  of  the  soil  a  multitude  of 
little  lumps  of  earth  thrown  up  by  earth- 
worms. The  idea  then  occurred  to  him  that  in 
their  continuous  journeyings  from  the  lower 
depths  to  the  surface  the  worms  carried  above 
ground  some  of  the  soil  rich  in  the  humus  that 
surrounded  the  dead  bodies,  and  along  with  it 
some  of  the  spores  of  anthrax  which  it  con- 
tained. But  Pasteur  never  stopped  short  at 
conjectures.  He  immediately  passed  on  to  ex- 
periments. These  justified  his  expectations: 
the  earth  contained  in  one  of  the  worms,  when 
used  to  inoculate  guinea-pigs,  produced  anthrax 
in  them."  (Roux,  Uceuvre  medicale  de  Pas- 
teur, Agenda  du  Chimiste,  1896.) 

Pasteur  had  studied  first  the  active  cause  of 
the  disease,  and  next  its  mode  of  propagation, 
and  found  that  the  spores  penetrated  into  the  or- 
ganism of  the  animals,  sheep  or  cattle,  through 
the  mucous  membranes  of  their  mouths,  where 
they  were  torn  by  the  dry  and  prickly  grass. 


128  PASTEUR 

How  were  the  flocks  and  herds  to  be  preserved? 
It  was  through  his  study  of  chicken  cholera, 
carried  on  simultaneously  with  that  of  anthrax, 
that  he  was  set  upon  the  right  path.  He  had 
noticed  that  the  cholera  microbes  (at  this  time 
the  word  microbe,  as  a  generic  term  for  vibri- 
ons,  bacterides,  etc.,  had  just  been  coined  by 
Sedillot,  a  surgeon  at  Strasburg,  approved  by 
Littre,  and  generally  adopted  by  scientists),  if 
left  exposed  to  the  air,  and  then  used  for  a  new 
culture,  lost  their  virulence  to  the  point  of  be- 
coming actually  harmless.  This  attenuation 
was  due  to  the  oxygen  in  the  air.  This  discov- 
ery was  destined  to  revolutionise  the  science  of 
medicine,  and  to  lead  Pasteur  to  the  employ- 
ment of  vaccines,  which  he  obtained  after  sev- 
eral years  of  extremely  delicate  experiments. 

It  was  on  the  28th  of  February,  1881,  that 
Pasteur  made  his  communication  to  the  Acad- 
emy of  Sciences  regarding  the  vaccine  of  an- 
thrax. It  was  received  by  some  with  enthusi- 
asm, and  by  others  with  mistrust.  Pasteur 
himself  was  certain  of  the  effects  of  his  discov- 


THE   CURATIVE    POISON        120 

ery,  healthy  animals  inoculated  with  the  atten- 
uated virus  would  surely  be  rendered  immune 
to  anthrax.  He  consented  to  make  a  test  on  a 
large  scale,  and  this  test  justly  remained  cele- 
brated. It  began  on  the  5th  of  May,  1881,  on 
a  farm  at  Pouilly-le-Fort,  near  Melun,  under 
the  auspices  of  the  Society  of  Agriculture  of 
that  town.  The  conditions  imposed  were  most 
rigorous,  but  Pasteur  was  confident  of  victory. 
Fifty  sheep  and  ten  cows  were  turned  over  to 
him:  of  the  former  lot  twenty-five  were  to  be 
vaccinated  with  an  attenuated  virus  and  then 
to  receive,  together  with  the  other  twenty-five 
which  had  not  been  vaccinated,  an  inoculation 
of  extremely  virulent  anthrax  microbes;  while 
for  the  second  lot  the  experiment  was  to  be  tried 
upon  six  vaccinated  animals  and  four  not  vac- 
cinated. Pasteur  asserted  that  all  those  which 
had  been  vaccinated  would  resist  the  disease  of 
anthrax,  while  those  which  had  not  been  vacci- 
nated would  all  die.  This  claim  had  the  au- 
dacity of  genius,  and  throughout  the  duration 
of  the  experiments  the  illustrious  scientist  mi- 


130  PASTEUR 

derwent  alternations  of  joyous  hope  and  fever- 
ish anxiety.  But  on  the  2d  of  June,  the  day 
fixed  by  Pasteur  for  judging  the  results,  after 
the  inoculation  with  virulent  bacterides,  which 
took  place  on  May  31,  it  proved  to  be  a  tri- 
umphant occasion  for  him  on  the  farm  at 
Pouilly-le-Fort.  The  prefect  of  Seine-et- 
Marne,  several  deputies  and  senators,  veteri- 
naries  and  journalists  were  present,  all  quiver- 
ing with  impatience — and  Pasteur's  predictions 
were  realised  in  every  particular  amid  the  con- 
gratulations of  an  enthusiastic  throng.  Every 
one  of  the  animals  which  had  been  inoculated 
but  not  vaccinated  had  contracted  anthrax  and 
died,  while  all  the  animals  that  had  been  both 
inoculated  and  vaccinated  escaped  all  symp- 
toms of  illness. 

On  the  13th  of  June  Pasteur  communicated 
to  the  Academy  of  Sciences  the  result  of  his  ex- 
periments at  Pouilly-le-Fort,  which  was  hence- 
forth to  be  known  as  ^The  Pasteur  Farm.''  In 
view  of  their  success,  which  had  made  an  enor- 
mous sensation,  he  was  able  to  say : 


THE   CURATIVE   POISON        131 

"We  now  possess  virus-vaccines  against  an- 
thrax, capable  of  warding  off  the  deadly  dis- 
ease, without  ever  proving  fatal  themselves — 
living  vaccines,  that  may  be  cultivated  at  will 
and  transported  anywhere  without  suffering 
harm;  vaccines,  in  short,  that  are  prepared  by 
a  method  which  we  have  reason  to  believe  is 
susceptible  of  being  generalised,  because  it  has 
once  already  been  put  into  practice  for  the  pur- 
pose of  obtaining  vaccine  against  chicken  chol- 
era. Because  of  the  character  of  the  conditions 
which  I  have  here  enumerated,  and  looking  at 
the  question  only  from  the  scientific  point  of 
view,  I  may  say  that  the  discovery  of  vaccine 
for  anthrax  constitutes  a  perceptible  progress 
in  advance  of  Jenner's  vaccine,  because  the  lat- 
ter was  not  obtained  as  a  result  of  experi- 
ments.'^ 

Pasteur  no  longer  met  with  the  same  obsta- 
cles that  had  confronted  his  method  for  the  cul- 
ture of  silk-worms;  his  vaccines  for  anthrax 
were  in  demand  in  every  cattle-raising  district 
of  France.    Within  one  year  after  the  above- 


132  PASTEUR 

mentioned  experiments  the  number  of  animals 
vaccinated  had  risen  to  613,740  sheep  and 
83,946  cattle! 

But  before  this  triumph — which  had  even 
been  questioned  in  certain  circles — he  had  to 
answer  numerous  criticisms  at  the  Academy  of 
Medicine,  where  too  many  of  the  ^^dear  mas- 
ters" refused  to  recognise  him  as  anything  more 
than  a  chemist.  He  was  forced  to  fight  on  be- 
half of  his  germ  theory  against  the  adherents 
of  the  old  school  who  refused  to  accept  not  only 
the  novelty  of  the  theory,  but  even  the  very 
existence  of  germs.  He  was  forced  to  defend 
his  experiments  when  they  were  called  in  ques- 
tion, and  one  day  he  actually  brought  some 
chickens  into  a  meeting  at  the  Academy  of 
Medicine,  in  order  to  convince  Colin  that  he 
could  infect  them  with  anthrax!  Pasteur  was 
an  energetic  adversary,  and  sometimes  a  violent 
one,  if  anyone  affected  not  to  understand  him ; 
and  he  defended  what  he  believed  to  be  the 
truth  with  crude  and  caustic  eloquence.  It 
very  nearly  led  him  into  a  duel  with  Jules 


THE   CURATIVE   POISON        133 

Guerin  in  October,  1881,  because  of  his  rather 
rough  treatment  of  him  on  the  subject  of  small- 
pox. 

This  whole  epoch  of  Pasteur's  life,  extend- 
ing from  1877  to  1882,  was  extremely  prolific. 
He  was  possessed  by  what  amounted  to  a  fever 
for  work,  and  his  ideas  radiated  in  all  direc- 
tions. His  laboratory  was  a  veritable  hive. 
Together  with  his  anthrax  vaccine,  he  found 
that  of  chicken  cholera;  and  his  pupil,  Thuil- 
lier,  discovered  the  microbe  of  rouget  in  swine. 
But  in  the  midst  of  all  his  polemics  and  his 
divers  other  duties  Pasteur's  chief  preoccupation 
was  that  of  human  diseases.  He  turned  his  at- 
tention to  puerperal  fever,  and,  having  dem- 
onstrated that  it  was  due  to  a  microbe,  he  out- 
lined for  doctors  a  whole  series  of  measures  of 
precaution  and  cleanliness  that  were  destined 
to  save  many  a  mother.  He  collected  notes  on 
the  plague,  he  made  a  study  of  boils,  he 
haunted  the  hospitals  in  company  of  his  stu- 
dents, notwithstanding  his  sensitiveness  and 
physical  repugnance. 


134  PASTEUR 

^The  sight  of  corpses,  the  sad  necessity  of 
autopsies  caused  him  actual  repulsion,"  writes 
M.  Roux.  ^^How  many  times  we  have  seen  him 
hastily  leave  the  amphitheatre  of  the  hospitals 
because  he  was  actually  ill!  But  his  love  of 
science,  his  curiosity  to  know  the  truth  were 
even  stronger;  he  always  came  back  on  the 
morrow.'^ 

After  having  conquered  himself  in  order  to 
bring  to  humanity  effective  remedies  against  in- 
fectious diseases,  Pasteur  was  destined  to  con- 
quer the  doctors  themselves,  bound  though 
they  were  to  the  old  formulas,  the  antiquated 
conceptions,  and  who  could  not,  without  some 
vexation  and  alarm,  behold  the  overthrow  of 
their  tranquillity  and  peaceful  routine. 

But  the  excitement  aroused  by  the  discovery 
of  anthrax  vaccine,  which  opened  such  great 
hopes  for  the  future,  was  confirmed  by  the 
learned  societies  and  the  ruling  powers.  The 
Society  of  the  Agriculturists  of  France  awarded 
Pasteur,  on  the  21st  of  February,  1881,  a  medal 
of  honour,  and  the  Government  bestowed  upon 


THE    CURATIVE    POISON         135 

him  the  grand  cordon  of  the  Legion  of  Honour. 
In  this  connection  we  meet  with  a  typical  mani- 
festation of  Pasteur's  character.  He  sent  word 
that  he  would  not  accept  this*  elevation  to  a 
higher  rank  unless  his  two  collaborators,  Cham- 
berland  and  Roux,  were  each  to  receive  the  red 
ribbon. 


CHAPTER   VII 

THE  SOVEREIGNTY  OF  GENIUS 

IN"  spite  of  a  small  refractory  group,  Pasteur's 
rise  into  fame  was  continuous,  and  his 
genius  radiated  throughout  the  scientific  world 
of  Europe.  The  government  had  appointed 
him  as  delegate  to  the  International  Medical 
Congress  held  at  London  in  April,  1881;  and 
there  he  was  the  recipient  of  exceptional  hon- 
ours. M.  Vallery-Radot  cites  a  very  beautiful 
letter,  which  Pasteur  wrote  to  his  wife  concern- 
ing the  attentions  that  he  received.  When  the 
President  of  the  CongresS;  Sir  James  Paget, 
happened  to  mention  his  name,  the  entire  as- 
semblage burst  into  applause,  and  Pasteur  was 
obliged  to  rise  and  salute  his  colleagues. 

''I  was  very  proud,"  he  wrote,  "very  proud 
internally,  not  for  myself — you  know  how  I  feel 
136 


THE    SOVEREIGNTY   OF   GENIUS    137 

in  regard  to  triumphs — but  for  my  country, 
when  I  realised  that  I  was  being  exceptionally 
distinguished  in  the  midst  of  this  immense  con- 
course of  foreigners,  of  Germans  especially,  who 
are  here  in  considerable  numbers,  far  greater 
numbers  than  there  are  Frenchmen,  of  whom 
nevertheless,  taken  altogether,  there  are  not 
less  than  two  hundred  and  fifty.  Jean  Baptiste 
and  Rene  were  present  at  the  session.  You  can 
judge  of  their  emotion. 

"After  the  session,  luncheon  at  the  home  of 
Sir  James  Paget,  with  the  Prussian  Prince 
seated  on  his  right  and  the  Prince  of  Wales  on 
his  left.  Then  a  gathering  of  twenty-five  to 
thirty  guests  in  the  drawing-room.  Sir  James 
presented  me  to  the  Prince  of  Wales,  before 
whom  I  made  my  bow,  telling  him  that  I  was 
happy  to  salute  the  friend  of  France. 

"  ^Yes,'  he  answered  me,  'sl  great  friend.' 
"Sir  James  Paget  had  the  good  taste  not  to 
ask  me  to  be  presented  to  the  Prussian  Prince. 
Although  under  such  circumstances  it  was  im- 
possible to  be  otherwise  than  courteous,  I  could 


138  PASTEUR 

not  have  made  up  my  mind  to  give  the  appear- 
ance of  having  asked  to  be  presented  to  him. 
But  all  of  a  sudden  the  Prince  himself  came  up 
to  me  and  said: 

"  'Monsieur  Pasteur,  allow  me  to  introduce 
myself  to  you,  and  to  tell  you  that  I  was  one  of 
those  who  applauded  you  this  morning/  And 
he  continued  talking  to  me  in  the  friendliest 
manner." 

Receptions  and  ceremonies  did  not  make  Pas- 
teur forget  his  serious  work;  and  in  a  lecture 
intended  as  an  answer  to  Bastian,  who  main- 
tained that  germs  were  born  from  the  organism 
containing  them,  he  described  his  labours,  his 
methods,  his  discovery  of  vaccines,  and  the  way 
in  which  he  had  proved  experimentally  tha+' 
germs  were  parasites.  This  exposition  by  Pas- 
teur, in  which  he  summed  up  his  entire  life  as 
a  scientist,  and  all  the  opportunities  which  it 
had  opened  up  to  the  future  of  science,  was 
printed  in  English  and  sent  to  all  the  members 
of  the  House  of  Commons.  The  greatest  Eng- 
lish  scientists,   it  should  be  added,   Tyndall, 


THE   SOVEREIGNTY   OF   GENIUS    139 

Paget  and  Lister,  had  rallied  to  the  support  of 
the  Pasteur  methods. 

Upon  returning  to  France,  he  set  forth  imme- 
diately for  Bordeaux,  where  he  hoped  to  have  a 
chance  to  study  yellow  fever,  which  had  broken 
out  among  the  crew  of  the  Conde,  just  arrived 
from  Senegal.  Yet,  at  the  same  time  that  he 
was  anxiously  concerned  regarding  these  sick 
sailors,  among  whom  he  hoped  to  find  subjects 
for  experiments,  he  was  profiting  by  his  leisure 
moments  to  visit  the  Bordeaux  library,  where 
he  read  the  works  of  Littre  assiduously,  and 
with  pen  in  hand.  The  fact  was  that  certain 
members  of  the  Academie  Frangaise  had  asked 
Pasteur  to  present  himself  as  candidate  for  the 
place  of  the  learned  linguist,  then  recently  de- 
ceased. 

We  have  seen  that  Pasteur,  the  great  revolu- 
tionist of  science,  had  a  deep  respect  for  de- 
grees, hierarchies,  social  orders  and  honorary 
distinctions,  and  it  seemed  to  him  that  this  was 
an  honour  out  of  all  proportion  to  his  own  liter- 
ary claims.    He  hesitated,  and  it  needed  all  the 


140  PASTEUR 

insistence  of  his  friends,  as  well  as  the  thought 
that  it  was  a  tribute  paid  to  science  rather  than 
to  him  personally,  to  decide  him  to  offer  him- 
self as  a  candidate.  He  was  elected  on  Decem- 
ber 8th,  1881,  to  the  thirty-first  chair,  whose 
previous  occupants  had  been  De  La  Chambre 
(1635),  Desmarais  (1670),  LaMonnoye  (1713), 
La  Riviere  (1727),  Hardion  (1730),  Thomas 
(1766),  Guilbert  (1786),  Fontanes  (1803),  Ville- 
main  (1821),  and  Littre  (1881).  It  may  well 
be  said  that,  even  though  he  was  not  a  man 
of  letters,  Pasteur's  name  will  remain  as  the 
one  which  has  shed  the  greatest  lustre  upon 
that  particular  chair. 

His  reception  took  place  on  the  27th  of  April, 
1882,  and  it  was  the  philosopher,  Ernest  Re- 
nan,  who  as  master  of  ceremonies,  welcomed 
the  scientist.  Their  two  addresses,  each  in  its 
respective  form  and  spirit,  are  admirable  monu- 
ments of  the  French  language  and  of  French 
thought.  That  of  Pasteur,  grave,  austere,  pro- 
found, paying  homage  to  the  merit  of  Littre, 
opening    up    marvellous    glimpses    into    the 


THE   SOVEREIGNTY   OF   GENIUS    141 

abysses  of  infinity;  that  of  Renan,  respectful 
towards  science,  complimentary,  witty  and  per- 
meated with  a  serene  and  subtle  philosophy. 

Louis  Pasteur  was  listened  to  with  a  re- 
ligious attention,  and  something  like  a  shiver 
passed  over  his  hearers  when  he  read,  in  a  voice 
which,  while  not  strong,  was  animated  by  an 
ardent  conviction,  this  celebrated  passage : 

"Above  and  beyond  the  starry  vault,  what  is 
there?  Other  new  star-lit  skies.  So  be  it! 
And  above  and  beyond  them?  The  human 
mind,  urged  on  by  an  invincible  force,  will 
never  cease  to  ask  itself.  What  is  there  beyond? 
What  if  the  mind  should  try  to  stop  at  some 
point,  either  in  time  or  space?  Since  that  point 
where  it  stops  marks  only  a  finite  greatness, 
merely  greater  than  those  which  preceded  it, 
the  mind  has  scarcely  begun  to  contemplate  it 
when  the  implacable  question  returns,  and 
never  can  its  curiosity  be  silenced.  It  does  no 
good  to  answer.  Above  and  beyond,  are  space, 
time,  greatness  without  limit.  No  one  compre- 
hends these  words.    Whoever  proclaims  the  ex- 


142  PASTEUR 

istence  of  the  infinite,  and  no  one  can  evade 
doing  so,  sums  up  in  that  affirmation  more  of 
the  supernatural  than  is  contained  in  all  the 
miracles  of  all  religions;  for  the  notion  of  the 
infinite  has  this  double  character,  of  being  un- 
deniable and  incomprehensible.  When  this  no- 
tion once  takes  possession  of  our  understand- 
ing there  is  nothing  left  but  to  prostrate  our- 
selves before  it.  More  than  that,  at  this  mo- 
ment of  poignant  anguish,  we  must  needs  crave 
mercy  from  our  own  brains;  all  the  sources  of 
intellectual  life  threaten  to  give  way;  we  feel 
ourselves  on  the  point  of  yielding  to  the 
sublime  folly  of  Pascal.  This  positive  and 
primordial  notion  is  gladly  set  aside,  with  all 
its  consequences,  by  modern  positivism,  in  the 
social  life  of  today. 

"On  all  sides  I  find  the  inevitable  expression 
of  this  idea  of  the  infinite  in  our  world.  It  is 
through  this  that  the  supernatural  lies  at  the 
bottom  of  every  heart.  The  idea  of  God  is  one 
form  of  the  idea  of  the  infinite.  So  long  as 
the  mystery  of  the  infinite  weighs  upon  human 


THE    SOVEREIGNTY   OF   GENIUS    143 

thought,  temples  will  be  raised  to  the  cult  of 
the  infinite,  whether  God  be  called  Brahma, 
Allah,  Jehovah  or  Jesus.  And  on  the  pavement 
of  these  temples  we  will  see  men  kneeling, 
prostrated,  lost  in  the  thought  of  the  infinite. 
Metaphysics  does  nothing  more  than  transfer 
to  within  ourselves  this  dominant  notion  of  the 
infinite.  And  is  not  the  conception  of  the  ideal 
merely  a  faculty  reflected  from  the  infinite, 
which  leads  us,  when  in  the  presence  of  beauty, 
to  conceive  of  a  still  higher  form  of  beauty? 
Are  science  and  the  passionate  desire  to  under- 
stand anything  else  than  the  effect  of  that  spur 
towards  knowledge  which  the  mystery  of  the 
universe  has  placed  in  our  souls?  Where  are 
the  true  sources  of  human  dignity,  of  liberty, 
of  modern  democracy,  unless  they  are  con- 
tained in  the  idea  of  the  infinite,  before  which 
all  men  are  equal?" 

His  hearers  had  applauded  the  words  of  the 
scientist  who  had  thus  dizzily  scrutinised  the 
mysteries  of  the  world ;  they  were  about  to  hear 
the  phrases  of  the  philosopher,  who  was  pon- 


144  PASTEUR 

dering  them  with  a  smile.  Ernest  Renan  wel- 
comed Pasteur  with  words  of  graceful  compli- 
ment and  noble  distinction : 

"We  are  quite  incompetent  to  bestow  fitting 
praise  upon  that  which  constitutes  your  true 
glory/'  he  said,  "those  admirable  experiments 
through  which  you  attain  the  very  confines  of 
life,  your  ingenious  fashion  of  interrogating 
nature,  which  so  many  times  has  won  from  her 
the  clearest  kind  of  replies,  those  precious  dis- 
coveries which,  day  by  day,  are  being  trans- 
formed into  conquests  of  the  highest  impor- 
tance to  humanity.  You  would  repudiate  our 
praises,  habituated  as  you  are  to  value  only  the 
judgments  of  your  peers;  and  in  the  scientific 
debates,  aroused  by  this  host  of  new  ideas,  you 
would  not  care  to  see  the  appreciations  of  men 
of  letters  intruding  among  the  acclaims  of  sci- 
entists related  to  you  by  the  brotherhood  of 
glory  and  toil.  Between  you  and  your  rival 
scientists  we  have  no  right  to  intervene.  But, 
apart  from  the  basis  of  science,  which  is  not  our 
province,  there  is  one  criterion,  Monsieur,  in 


THE   SOVEREIGNTY   OF   GENIUS   145 

regard  to  which  our  knowledge  of  the  human 
mind  gives  us  the  right  to  express  an  opinion. 
There  is  something  which  we  are  able  to  recog- 
nise in  its  most  diverse  manifestations,  some- 
thing which  belongs  in  equal  degree  to  Galileo, 
to  Pascal,  to  Michelangelo  and  to  Moliere; 
something  which  constitutes  the  sublimity  of 
the  poet,  the  profundity  of  the  philosopher,  the 
fascination  of  the  orator,  the  divination  of  the 
savant.  This  common  basis  of  all  beautiful 
and  true  works,  this  divine  flame,  this  indefina- 
ble breath  which  is  the  inspiration  of  science, 
literature  and  art,  we  find  in  you.  Monsieur :  it 
is  genius.  No  one  else  has  traversed  with  so 
assured  a  step  the  circles  of  elemental  nature; 
your  scientific  life  is  like  a  luminous  trail  across 
the  great  night  of  the  infinitely  small,  in  those 
furthest  depths  of  being,  where  life  is  born.'' 

After  analysing  the  work  of  Pasteur,  and 
pointing  out  the  strong  continuity  of  his  re- 
searches, Renan  spoke  of  his  virtues. 

''Your  austere  life,"  he  said,  "wholly  conse- 
crated to  disinterested  research,  is  the  best  re- 


146  PASTEUR 

sponse  to  those  who  regard  our  century  as  hav- 
ing lost  the  heritage  of  the  great  gifts  of  the 
soul.  Your  laborious  assiduity  has  been  a 
stranger  to  all  recreation  and  repose." 

Then,  having  recognised  the  merits  of  Littre, 
Renan  concluded,  with  rare  and  exquisite 
subtlety : 

^'Your  absolute  devotion  to  science  gave  you 
the  right.  Monsieur,  to  succeed  to  such  a  man 
and  to  recall  to  us  his  great  and  revered 
memory.  You  will  find  in  our  meetings  a 
source  of  relaxation  for  your  mind  continually 
occupied  with  new  discoveries.  This  associa- 
tion with  a  company  composed  of  all  sorts  of 
opinions  and  every  type  of  mind  will  be  con- 
genial to  you ;  here  we  have  the  pleasant  laugh 
of  comedy,  the  pure  and  tender  romance,  the 
soaring  flight  of  poetry,  with  its  harmonious 
rhythm ;  there  we  have  all  the  subtlety  of  moral 
observation,  the  most  exquisite  analysis  of  the 
works  of  the  mind,  the  profound  significance  of 
history.  None  of  this  will  shake  your  faith  in 
your  experiments;  the  right  acid  will  remain 


THE  SOVEREIGNTY  OF  GENIUS     147 

the  right  acid,  the  left  acid  will  remain  the  left 
acid.  But  you  will  find  that  the  prudent  la- 
bours of  M.  Littre  also  had  their  value.  You 
will  follow  with  some  interest  the  care  taken 
by  our  critical  philosophy  to  eliminate  error,  by 
mistrusting  its  own  procedure  and  limiting  the 
extent  of  its  observations.  When  you  see  how 
many  good  things  are  taught  by  those  branches 
of  letters  that  are  frivolous  in  appearance,  you 
will  come  to  believe  that  the  discreet  doubt,  the 
smile,  the  fine  play  of  wit  of  which  Pascal 
speaks,  also  have  their  value.  Among  us  you 
will  find  no  experiments  to  make;  but  that 
modest  power  of  observation,  from  which  you 
demand  so  much,  will  sufiSce  to  procure  you 
many  a  pleasant  hour.  We  will  communicate 
our  hesitations  to  you :  and  you  will  communi- 
cate your  assurance  to  us.  You  will  bring  us, 
above  all,  your  glory,  your  genius,  and  the  re- 
nown of  your  discoveries.  Monsieur,  I  bid  you 
welcome.'^ 

Pasteur    was    succeeded    in    the    Academie 
Frangaise  by  Gaston  Paris,  the  restorer  of  the 


148  PASTEUR 

old  national  literature  of  France;  and  on  the 
occasion  of  his  reception  the  illustrious  scientist, 
J.  Bertrand,  who  responded  to  his  address,  told 
some  delicious  anecdotes  of  Pasteur,  his  works 
and  his  character. 

"Already  illustrious,"  he  said,  "but  not  yet 
celebrated,  Pasteur  was  appointed  to  express, 
before  the  statue  of  Thenard,  the  homage  of 
the  Ecole  Normale.  He  was  scheduled  to  speak 
among  the  very  last  of  the  orators.  When  he 
arose  to  make  his  address  the  crowd,  weary  of 
eloquence,  continued  to  applaud,  but  had 
ceased  to  listen.  Without  wasting  time  by  re- 
lating for  the  fifteenth  occasion  trivial  anec- 
dotes and  doubtful  legends,  without  even  men- 
tioning hydrogen  peroxide,  Pasteur  paid  The- 
nard the  admirable  tribute  of  dwelling  only  on 
his  kindliness,  recalling  only  his  sense  of  justice. 
From  the  opening  words  his  earnest  and  effec- 
tive phrases  penetrated  to  the  very  heart,  and, 
while  even  the  remotest  hearers  followed  him 
with  close  attention,  tears  of  emotion  filled  the 
eyes  of  all.    Occasions  such  as  that  were  rare. 


THE   SOVEREIGNTY   OF   GENIUS   149 

It  was  only  when  he  was  forced  to  it  that  Pas- 
teur showed  the  brilliance  of  his  mind.  One 
day  at  the  Academy  of  Sciences  two  contra- 
dictory spirits  were  raising  objections  unworthy 
of  attention  regarding  certain  discoveries.  After 
a  crushing  reply,  Pasteur,  apostrophising  them 
both  together,  said  to  the  one,  ^Do  you  know 
what  you  lack?  You  lack  the  power  of  obser- 
vation ! '  and  to  the  other,  'And  you,  the  power 
of  reasoning!'  A  murmur  arose.  The  Acad- 
emy was  protesting  against  the  lack  of  cour- 
tesy in  his  form  of  speech.  Pasteur  at  once 
interrupted  himself. 

"  The  heat  of  the  discussion  carried  me 
away,'  he  said;  'I  regret  my  impetuosity.  I 
beg  that  my  colleagues  will  accept  my  sincere 
apology.' 

''His  extreme  simplicity  and  frankness  pleased 
the  members,  when  suddenly  he  added : 

"  T  have  acknowledged  myself  at  fault ;  I 
have  willingly  made  my  excuses;  may  I  not  be 
permitted  to  plead  an  extenuating  circum- 
stance?   It  is  this,  that  what  I  said  was  true ! ' 


150  PASTEUR 

"And,  after  a  moment's  reflection,  he  added : 

"^Absolutely  true!' 

"A  unanimous  and  appreciative  laugh  en- 
livened the  Academy,  and,  like  sensible  persons, 
his  two  adversaries  joined  in." 

In  accordance  with  Renan's  expressed  desire, 
Pasteur  frequently  attended  the  meetings  of 
the  Academie  Frangaise.  He  sometimes  went 
there  in  the  company  of  M.  Duruy,  the  Minis- 
ter of  Public  Instruction,  who  had  encouraged 
his  early  efforts,  for  it  happened  that  one  of 
them  lived  at  the  Ecole  Normale,  in  the  Rue 
d'Ulm^  and  the  other  in  the  Rue  de  Medicis. 
One  Thursday,  when  they  had  taken  a  modest 
fiacre  to  drive  to  the  Institute,  it  happened  to 
be  Duruy  who,  upon  arriving  at  their  destina- 
tion, tendered  a  five-franc  piece  to  the  coach- 
man. 

"No  change,"  said  the  latter. 

"Then  keep  the  whole  piece  in  memory  of 
the  occasion;  you  have  driven  the  leading  sci- 
entist of  the  century." 

Pasteur   immediately  put  his  hand  in  his 


THE    SOVEREIGNTY   OF   GENIUS    151 

pocket,  drew  out  a  brand-new  crown,  and  said : 

'^Here,  my  friend,  take  this  also,  because  you 
have  driven  the  greatest  minister  of  the  Sec- 
ond Empire!" 

The  coachman  looked  somewhat  bewildered, 
but  eminently  happy,  while  the  two  academi- 
cians entered  the  court  of  the  Palais  Mazarin, 
still  laughing. 

For  Pasteur,  one  homage  succeeded  another. 
The  town  of  Aubenas,  saved  from  ruin  by  his 
discoveries  in  regard  to  the  disease  of  silk- 
worms, presented  him,  in  May,  1882,  with  a 
work  of  art  in  which  the  microscope  was  por- 
trayed as  rendering  possible  the  cultivation  of 
healthy  silk-worms.  Next  it  was  Nimes  which 
awarded  him  a  medal  for  his  vaccine  against 
anthrax ;  and  next  Montpellier,  where  the  Agri- 
cultural Society  organised  a  solemn  meeting  for 
the  purpose  of  thanking  him  for  having  van- 
quished anthrax,  and  to  beg  him  to  cure  the  rot 
and  the  phylloxera.  He  had  become  the  great 
magician. 

But  he  had  against  him  certain  "beloved 


152  PASTEUR 

brethren"  who,  either  in  good  faith  or  other- 
wise, combatted  the  doctrine  of  microbes,  and 
he  had  to  sustain  some  hard  contests  against 
the  doubting  Peters  of  the  Academy  of  Medi- 
cine. On  the  other  hand,  the  German  school, 
with  Dr.  Koch  at  its  head,  disputed  his  discov- 
eries, going  so  far  as  to  deny  wholly  the  value 
of  his  observations.  But  he  was  so  certain  of 
the  positive  results  he  had  obtained  that  he 
sent  his  pupil  Thuillier  as  a  delegate  to  Ger- 
many, with  virulent  cultures  of  anthrax,  as  well 
as  attenuated  viruses,  thus  carrying  his  experi- 
ments into  the  territory  of  the  enemy. 

He  suffered  from  such  ill  will,  and  from  all 
these  quarrels,  ceaselessly  renewed;  his  resent- 
ment, however,  was  softened  by  the  admiration 
he  received  from  the  great  majority  of  scien- 
tists. The  Academy  of  Sciences  having  taken 
the  initiative,  the  learned  societies  subscribed 
towards  a  medal  to  be  presented  to  him,  con- 
taining his  profile  modeled  by  Alphee  Dubois, 
with  this  inscription :  ^To  Louis  Pasteur,  from 
his  colleagues,  his  friends  and  his  admirers." 


THE   SOVEREIGNTY   OF   GENIUS    153 

This  token  was  presented  to  him  on  the  25th 
of  January,  1882,  and  Pasteur  had  the  pleasure 
of  seeing  his  old  teacher,  Dumas,  heading  the 
delegation,  which  consisted  of  Boussingault, 
Bouley,  Jamin,  Daubree,  Bertin,  Tisserand, 
and  Davaine,  and  of  hearing  him  deliver  the 
presentation  speech — Dumas,  whom  as  an  ob- 
scure youth  he  had  listened  to  at  the  Sorbonne, 
leaving  the  lecture  room  moved  to  the  point  of 
tears. 

The  Government  did  not  remain  insensible 
to  the  enthusiastic  movement  in  recognition  of 
the  discoveries  of  Pasteur.  Upon  the  second  re- 
port by  Paul  Bert,  the  French  Chambers  raised 
Pasteur's  pension  to  25,000  francs,  in  imitation 
of  Germany,  which  had  accorded  Jenner  250,000 
francs  in  1802  and  500,000  in  1807  for  his  vac- 
cine against  small-pox.  Paul  Bert's  report 
summed  up  Pasteur's  works  as  follows: 

"They  can  be  classed,"  he  wrote,  "in  three 
series;  they  constitute  three  great  discoveries: 

"The  first  may  be  formulated  as  follows: 


154  PASTEUR 

Each  fermentation  is  the  product  of  the  devel- 
opment of  a  special  microbe. 

^The  second  may  be  formulated:  Each  in- 
fectious disease  (or  at  least  those  which  have 
been  studied  by  M.  Pasteur  or  his  immediate 
disciples)  is  produced  by  the  development  of 
some  special  microbe  within  the  organism. 

'The  third  may  be  expressed  as  follows :  The 
microbe  of  an  infectious  disease,  if  cultivated 
under  certain  specified  conditions,  becomes  at- 
tenuated in  respect  to  its  harmful  qualities;  it 
has  been  converted  from  a  virus  into  a  vaccine. 

"As  practical  consequences  of  the  first  dis- 
covery, M.  Pasteur  has  given  rules  for  the  man- 
ufacture of  vinegar  and  beer,  and  he  has  shown 
how  beer  and  wine  may  be  preserved  from  those 
secondary  fermentations  which  turn  them  sour, 
cause  Vamer,  la  graisse,  la  pousse,  and  prevent 
their  transportation  and  often  even  their  pres- 
ervation on  the  spot  where  they  are  produced. 

"As  practical  consequences  of  the  second  dis- 
covery, M.  Pasteur  has  prescribed  the  rules  to 
be  followed  in  order  to  protect  our  flocks  and 


THE   SOVEREIGNTY   OF   GENIUS  155 

herds  from  the  contamination  of  anthrax  and 
our  silk-worms  from  the  maladies  which  de- 
stroy them.  On  the  other  hand,  our  surgeons 
have,  succeeded  under  its  guidance  in  almost 
completely  doing  away  with  erysipelas  and 
other  purulent  infections  which  formerly  caused 
the  death  of  so  many  patients  after  operations. 

''As  practical  consequences  of  the  third  dis- 
covery, M.  Pasteur  has  prescribed  the  rules  to 
be  followed  in  order  to  save  the  horses,  cattle 
and  sheep,  and,  in  point  of  fact,  has  saved  them 
from  the  disease  of  anthrax,  which  annually 
caused  their  death  in  France,  to  the  value  of 
twenty  million  francs.  Swine  also  are  now  pro- 
tected from  rouget,  which  decimated  them,  and 
the  barn-door  fowl,  from  the  chicken  cholera, 
which  caused  terrible  ravages  among  them. 
And  now  there  is  every  reason  to  hope  that 
hydrophobia  also  will  soon  be  conquered." 

The  motion  calling  for  an  increase  of  the  na- 
tional recompense  was  passed  unanimously,  but 
a  ceremony  even  dearer  to  Pasteur's  heart  than 
this  grateful  homage  of  an  entire  people  was 


156  PASTEUR 

in  preparation  in  the  little  town  of  his  birth. 
On  the  14th  of  July,  1883,  a  commemorative 
tablet  was  placed  upon  the  house  in  which 
Pasteur  was  born,  and  M.  Kaempfen,  director 
of  the  Beaux- Arts,  who  had  been  delegated  by 
the  Government,  said  at  its  inauguration : 

''In  the  name  of  the  Government  of  the  Re- 
public, I  salute  this  inscription,  which  recalls 
the  fact  that  on  the  27th  of  December,  1822, 
there  was  born  in  this  little  street  one  who  was 
destined  to  become  one  of  the  greatest  scientists 
of  a  century,  whose  greatness  lies  in  science,  and 
one  who  by  his  admirable  labours  has  aug- 
mented the  glory  of  his  native  land  and  won. 
the  gratitude  of  all  humanity.'^ 

Pasteur  spoke  in  reply,  and  his  address  re- 
veals the  great  qualities  of  his  generous  heart, 
his  extreme  personal  modesty,  and  the  pride 
which  he  cherished  on  behalf  of  science  alone. 

"Gentlemen,"  he  said,  ''I  am  deeply  moved 
by  thf^  honour  done  me  by  the  town  of  Dole; 
but  permit  me,  while  expressing  my  apprecia- 
tion, to  utter  a  protest  against  this  excess  of 


THE    SOVEREIGNTY   OF   GENIUS    157 

glory.  In  according  me  a  homage  which  is  ren- 
dered only  to  the  illustrious  dead,  you  are 
usurping  in  advance  the  judgment  of  posterity. 

"Will  posterity  ratify  your  decision,  and 
ought  you  not,  Monsieur  the  Mayor,  have  pru- 
dently advised  the  municipal  council  not  to 
pass  such  a  hasty  resolution? 

"But  having  made  my  protest,  gentlemen, 
against  this  public  proof  of  an  admiration 
which  I  do  not  deserve,  allow  me  to  say  that  I 
am  touched  and  moved  to  the  bottom  of  my 
soul.  Your  sympathetic  tribute  has  united  in 
this  commemorative  tablet  the  two  great  things 
which  have  formed  at  once  the  passion  and  the 
charm  of  my  life:  my  love  of  science  and  my 
attachment  to  the  paternal  hearth. 

"Oh!  my  father  and  my  mother!  oh!  my 
dear  lost  ones,  who  lived  so  modestly  in  this 
little  house,  it  is  you  to  whom  I  owe  every- 
thing! Your  enthusiasm,  my  valiant  mother, 
you  passed  on  to  me.  If  I  have  always  asso- 
ciated the  greatness  of  science  with  the  great- 
ness of  my  native  land,  it  is  because  I  was  im- 


158  PASTEUR 

pregnated  with  the  sentiments  which  you  in- 
spired in  me.  And  you,  my  dear  father,  whose 
life  was  as  hard  as  your  own  hard  craft,  it  is  you 
who  taught  me  what  can  be  done  by  patience 
and  long  effort.  It  is  you  to  whom  I  owe  tena- 
cious persistence  in  the  daily  task.  Not  only 
did  you  have  those  qualities  of  perseverance 
which  result  in  useful  lives,  but  you  also  had 
admiration  for  great  men  and  great  deeds.  To 
aim  higher  and  higher,  to  learn  more  and  more, 
to  seek  constantly  to  rise,  such  were  the  things 
you  taught  me.  I  can  still  see  you,  at  the  close 
of  your  laborious  day,  reading  in  the  evening 
the  account  of  some  battle  from  one  of  the  vol- 
umes of  contemporaneous  history  which  re- 
called to  your  mind  the  glorious  epoch  of  which 
you  had  been  witness.  While  teaching  me  to 
read,  you  also  took  pains  to  teach  me  the  great- 
ness of  France. 

^'My  blessings  on  you  both,  my  dear  parents, 
for  all  that  you  have  been,  and  let  me  pass  on 
to  you  the  homage  that  has  today  been  paid  to 
this  house. 


THE   SOVEREIGNTY   OF   GENIUS   159 

"Gentlemen,  I  thank  you  for  having  permit- 
ted me  to  say  publicly  what  has  been  in  my 
thoughts  for  sixty  years.  I  thank  you  for  this 
festival  and  for  your  welcome,  and  I  thank  the 
town  of  Dole,  which  never  loses  sight  of  any  of 
her  children,  and  which  has  held  me  in  such 
affectionate  memory/' 

But  the  honours  paid  to  his  genius,  whether 
of  a  private  or  public  character,  failed  to  turn 
him  aside  from  his  laborious  task.  At  the  be- 
ginning of  the  month  of  August,  1883,  at  which 
time  a  formidable  epidemic  of  cholera  had 
broken  out  in  Egypt,  he  sent  out  a  small  band 
of  his  pupils,  Messrs.  Roux,  Nocard,  Strauss 
and  Thuillier,  for  the  purpose  of  studying  the 
frightful  malady  and  seeking  some  means  of 
checking  its  ravages.  Thuillier  was  destined 
to  die  during  this  scientific  expedition,  stricken 
down  by  the  scourge  in  the  fullness  of  youth 
and  hope ;  he  was  only  twenty-six  years  of  age. 
Through  the  pious  cares  of  the  Pasteur  Insti- 
tute his  medallion  has  been  placed  upon  one  of 


160  PASTEUR 

the  walls  of  the  garden,  in  testimony  of  his 
valour  and  devotion. 

The  studies  pursued  by  Pasteur  and  his  pu- 
pils were  at  this  epoch  extended  to  every 
malady  of  microbic  origin,  but  more  particu- 
larly to  hydrophobia,  that  terror  of  the  country 
districts,  and  which  the  illustrious  scientist  was 
determined  to  vanquish  by  the  combined  power 
of  genius  and  persistence.  He  was  interrupted 
for  a  few  weeks  by  the  obligation  of  represent- 
ing France  at  the  celebration  of  the  tri-cen- 
tenary  of  the  University  of  Edinburgh,  in  com- 
pany with  Messrs.  Caro,  Greard,  de  Lesseps, 
Guizot  and  Eugene  Guillaume.  In  London  the 
French  delegates  found  a  private  parlor  car 
awaiting  them,  thanks  to  Mr.  Younger,  a 
Scotch  brewer,  who  wished  in  this  manner  to 
thank  Pasteur  for  his  studies  in  relation  to  beer. 
It  was  a  recognition  of  the  fine  generosity  of 
the  French  savant,  who  had  enriched  com- 
merce and  manufactures  to  the  extent  of  mil- 
lions, while  refusing  to  retain  anything  for 
himself.  And  that  is  one  of  the  brightest  sides 
of  the  glory  of  France. 


CHAPTER   VIII 

HYDROPHOBIA 

MAD  dogs  were  formerly  the  terror  of  the 
country-side.  The  mysterious  charac- 
ter of  the  malady,  its  frightful  consequences  to 
those  whom  it  attacked,  classed  it  among  those 
scourges  of  the  fields  against  which  no  certain 
remedy  was  known.  In  ancient  times  Pliny  the 
Elder  advised  those  who  had  been  bitten  to  eat 
the  liver  of  the  dog  who  had  done  the  harm, 
while  Gallian  prescribed  as  a  remedy  the  eyes 
of  crabs!  During  the  middle  ages,  which  were 
haunted  by  mad  dogs,  the  remedies  used  were 
omelettes  made  of  ground  oyster  shells  and 
cauterisation  of  the  wound  with  red-hot  irons  ; 
but  most  frequently  they  stifled  the  unhappy 
sufferers  between  two  mattresses.  In  the 
eighteenth  century  a  Lieutenant  of  Police 
161 


162  PASTEUR 

named  Lenoir  founded  a  prize  of  twelve  hun- 
dred pounds,  to  be  awarded  by  the  Royal  So- 
ciety of  Medicine  to  the  author  of  the  best 
paper  on  the  methods  of  curing  hydrophobia. 
It  was  won  by  a  certain  Dr.  Roux,  a  phj^sician 
at  Dijon,  and,  among  the  methods  of  saving 
those  who  had  been  bitten,  he  recommended 
cauterisation  with  hot  irons,  and  more  espe- 
cially with  antimony  tri-chloride  (^'butter  of 
antimony"). 

In  the  eighteenth  century  the  problem  of  hy- 
drophobia, although  it  had  been  studied  more 
scientifically,  had  made  but  little  progress,  until 
Pasteur  caused  a  sensation  by  discovering  its 
solution.  He  began  his  researches  in  1880  with 
the  collaboration  of  Doctors  Chamberland, 
Roux  and  Thuillier.  We  cannot  follow  them 
through  all  the  details  of  the  long  succession  of 
exceedingly  delicate  experiments  that  often 
had  to  be  commenced  all  over  again  in  order  to 
obtain  assured  results ;  but  a  very  simple  sum- 
mary will  make  it  clear  that  Pasteur's  genius 
was  as  fruitful  as  ever,  and  that  his  illness  had 


HYDROPHOBIA  163 

in  no  wise  impaired  his  qualities  as  an  experi- 
menter. 

On  the  10th  of  December,  1880,  Pasteur,  be- 
ing informed  by  Dr.  Lannelongue  that  he  had 
under  treatment,  at  Trousseau  a  five-year-old 
child  who  had  been  bitten  by  a  mad  dog,  went 
to  obtain  a  specimen  of  his  saliva.  In  the  saliva 
he  discovered  a  microbe,  which  was  not  that  of 
hydrophobia,  and  which,  when  injected  into 
rabbits,  caused  their  death  within  two  days  of 
a  different  disease.  Nevertheless,  the  saliva 
contained  the  microbes  of  hydrophobia,  but 
they  lost  all  their  virulence  within  twenty-four 
hours.  Since  rabies  chiefly  affects  the  nerve 
centres,  Pasteur  inoculated  rabbits  and  dogs 
with  the  cranial  marrow  of  rabid  dogs.  The 
subjects  inoculated  developed  hydrophobia 
after  a  greater  or  less  lapse  of  time,  and  the  ex- 
periments became  difficult  to  follow  and  to  con- 
trol. In  order  to  hasten  the  period  of  inocula- 
tion, Pasteur  conceived  the  idea  of  injecting  the 
matter  containing  the  germs  directly  into  the 
dogs'  skulls ;  but  the  idea  of  trepanning,  neces- 


164  PASTEUR 

sitated  by  the  injection,  was  repugnant  to  him. 

^^He  could  witness,  without  much  distress,  a 
simple  operation  such  as  subcutaneous  inocu- 
lation," writes  M.  Roux,  "although  even  then, 
if  the  animal  cried  a  little,  Pasteur  would  be 
overcome  with  pity  and  make  his  escape,  lav- 
ishing on  the  victim  words  of  consolation  and 
encouragement,  which  would  have  seemed  com- 
ical if  they  had  not  been  so  touching.  The 
thought  that  a  dog's  skull  would  have  to  be 
perforated  was  most  unpleasant  to  him.  He 
was  keenly  anxious  to  have  the  experiment 
tried,  yet  he  shrank  from  seeing  it  undertaken. 
I  did  it  one  day  when  he  was  absent.  The  fol- 
lowing day,  when  I  reported  to  him  that  the 
intracranial  inoculation  offered  no  difficulties, 
he  fell  to  pitying  the  dog : 

"  'Poor  beast!  Its  brain  is  no  doubt  rup- 
tured ;  it  must  be  paralysed.' 

^'Without  reply,  I  descended  to  the  basement 
to  get  the  animal,  and  brought  it  back  with  me 
to  the  laboratory.  Pasteur  was  not  fond  of 
dogs,  but  when  he  saw  this  one,  full  of  spirits 


HYDROPHOBIA  165 

and  curiously  exploring  the  premises,  he  ex- 
hibited the  keenest  satisfaction  and  began  to 
lavish  terms  of  endearment  upon  it.  He  felt 
an  infinite  gratitude  towards  this  particular  dog 
for  having  stood  the  trepanning  so  well,  and 
thus  having  put  an  end  to  all  his  scruples  in 
regard  to  future  trepanning."  ^ 

The  experiment  succeeded,  and  the  period  of  • 
inoculation  was  reduced  to  twenty  days,  and  it 
was  demonstrated  that  the  principal  seat  of  the 
malady  was  in  the  nervous  centres.  To  the  first 
results,  which  were  of  a  theoretic  character, 
Pasteur  became  ambitious  to  add  others  of  a 
practical  nature.  Was  it  possible  to  render 
dogs  immune  to  hydrophobia  after  they  had 
been  bitten,  as  he  had  rendered  cattle  and 
sheep  immune  to  anthrax?  And  could  this  im- 
munity be  extended  to  man? 

The  problem  was  quite  complex,  for  he  did 
not  know  the  microbe  of  hydrophobia,  which 
had  barely  been  detected  by  Dr.  Roux,  in  the 

*  L'Oeuvre  Medicate  de  Pasteur,  by  Dr.  Roux.    Agenda 
du  Chimiste,  1896. 


166  PASTEUR 

form  of  points  almost  imperceptible  under  the 
most  powerful  microscopes.  It  was  here  that 
the  inventive  genius  of  Pasteur  displayed  itself. 
Since  he  could  not  cultivate  these  microbes  in 
appropriate  liquids  and  attenuate  them  ac- 
cording to  the  method  that  he  had  used  in  the 
case  of  anthrax  and  chicken  cholera,  he  con- 
ceived the  idea  of  cultivating  them  from  rabbit 
to  rabbit,  and  in  this  way  he  obtained  a  fixed 
maximum  of  virulence  which  reduced  the 
period  of  inoculation  to  seven  days.  But  how 
was  the  virus  to  be  transformed  into  vaccine? 
Pasteur  observed  that  the  infected  marrows, 
when  brought  into  contact  with  dry  air,  lost 
their  virulence  in  proportion  to  the  length  of 
time  they  were  exposed,  becoming  almost  harm- 
less after  fifteen  days. 

The  attenuated  virus  having  been  found  by 
a  process  which,  although  hardly  scientific,  was 
certain,  the  next  facts  to  ascertain  were :  First, 
whether  inoculation  with  this  vaccine  virus 
would  render  dogs  resistant  to  hydrophobia; 
and,  secondly,  whether  inoculation  would  pre- 


HYDROPHOBIA  167 

vent  the  disease  from  appearing  and  developing 
in  animals  that  had  been  bitten. 

The  experiments  were  long  and  full  of  diffi- 
culties. The  laboratory  in  the  Rue  d'Ulm  no 
longer  sufficed  to  contain  all  the  subjects.  The 
State  placed  at  Pasteur's  disposal  more  exten- 
sive quarters  at  Villeneuve-l'Etang,  near  Saint- 
Cloud.  Finally  his  experiments  achieved  this 
double  result:  Hydrophobia  could  be  com- 
municated to  animals  by  inoculation;  and,  on 
the  other  hand,  inoculation  with  attenuated 
virus  rendered  dogs  resistant  to  hydrophobia, 
and  prevented  the  disease  from  appearing  in 
those  that  had  been  bitten. 

Pasteur  was  sure  of  the  efficacy  of  his  dis- 
covery, but  he  hesitated  to  apply  his  method  to 
human  beings. 

^'1  have  not  yet  dared  to  make  any  attempt 
upon  man,"  he  wrote  to  the  Emperor  of  Bra- 
zil, "in  spite  of  my  confidence  as  to  the  result, 
and  in  spite  of  the  numerous  opportunities  that 
have  been  offered  me  since  my  last  lecture  at 
the  Academy  of  Sciences.     I  am  too  much 


168  PASTEUR 

afraid  of  a  failure,  which  may  compromise  my 
future  plans.  I  want  first  to  collect  a  multi- 
tude of  successful  cases  of  the  treatment  of  ani- 
mals. In  this  respect  matters  are  going  well. 
I  already  have  numerous  examples  of  dogs  ren- 
dered immune  after  having  been  bitten.  I  take 
two  dogs,  and  I  cause  them  to  be  bitten  by  an- 
other dog  that  is  mad.  I  vaccinate  one  of  them, 
and  I  leave  the  other  without  treatment;  the 
latter  dies  of  hydrophobia;  the  one  that  was 
vaccinated  is  immune. 

"But,  no  matter  to  what  extent  I  should  mul- 
tiply these  examples  of  the  prophylaxis  of  hy- 
drophobia in  dogs,  it  seems  to  me  that  my  hand 
would  inevitably  tremble  when  the  time  came 
to  apply  the  treatment  to  a  human  being. 

''Here  is  where  the  high  and  powerful  initia- 
tive of  the  Sovereign  of  a  State  might  inter- 
vene most  profitably  for  the  greatest  good  of 
humanity.  If  I  were  king  or  emperor,  or  even 
President  of  the  Republic,  this  is  the  way  in 
which  I  should  exercise  my  right  to  pardon 
prisoners  condemned  to  death.    I  should  offer 


HYDROPHOBIA  169 

the  condemned  man,  through  his  lawyer,  on 
the  eve  of  his  client's  execution,  the  choice  be- 
tween imminent  death  and  an  experiment  con- 
sisting of  preventive  inoculation  of  hydro- 
phobia for  the  purpose  of  rendering  his  consti- 
tution immune  to  that  disease.  Aside  from  the 
risks  of  these  experiments,  the  life  of  the  con- 
demned man  would  be  spared.  In  case  the  ex- 
periments should  succeed — and,  in  point  of  fact, 
I  am  sure  they  would — in  order  to  protect  so- 
ciety, which  had  previously  condemned  the 
criminal,  he  could  be  kept  in  custody  for  the 
rest  of  his  life. 

"Every  condemned  man  would  accept.  For 
the  only  thing  which  a  condemned  man  fears 
is  death. 

'This  brings  me  to  the  question  of  cholera, 
which  Your  Majesty  also  had  the  goodness  to 
discuss  with  me.  Neither  Doctors  Strauss  and 
Roux  nor  Dr.  Koch  have  succeeded  in  infect- 
ing animals  with  cholera.  Hence  there  is  a 
great  uncertainty  regarding  the  bacillus  which 
Dr.  Koch  believes  to  be  the  cause  of  cholera. 


170  PASTEUR 

We  ought  to  be  allowed  to  try  to  give  cholera 
to  criminals  condemned  to  death  by  making 
them  swallow  cultures  of  these  bacilli.  As  soon 
as  the  malady  should  make  its  appearance  the 
remedies  regarded  as  most  efficacious  could  im- 
mediately be  administered. 

^^I  attach  so  much  importance  to  these  meas- 
ures that,  if  Your  Majesty  should  share  my 
views,  I  would  gladly  set  out  for  Rio  Janeiro, 
despite  my  age  and  state  of  health,  in  order  to 
devote  myself  to  this  sort  of  study  of  the 
prophylaxis  of  hydrophobia,  or  the  contagion  of 
cholera,  and  the  remedies  to  be  applied  to  it." 
(Letter  cited  by  M.  Vallery-Radot,  in  La  Vie 
de  Pasteur.) 

His  conscience  became  so  troubled  by  this 
weight  of  responsibility  that  the  famous  sci- 
entist even  thought  of  inoculating  himself, 
when  at  last  his  experiments,  repeatedly  tried 
upon  animals,  gave  such  unmistakable  results 
that  he  decided  to  apply  his  methods  to  human 
beings. 

The  first  inoculation  was  given  to  a  boy  nine 


HYDROPHOBIA  171 

years  old,  an  Alsatian,  named  Joseph  Meister, 
who  had  been  seriously  bitten  by  a  mad  dog  on 
the  6th  of  July,  1885.  He  had  fourteen  wounds, 
and  was  in  a  lamentable  state.  The  treatment 
began  with  the  injection  of  the  least  virulent 
vaccine  obtained  from  infected  marrow  four- 
teen days  old.  The  child  stood  it  admirably, 
but  Pasteur  became  anxious,  distressed  to  the 
point  of  sleeplessness,  when  it  became  necessary 
to  pass  on  to  the  virulent  vaccines.  How  would 
the  young  patient  respond  to  them?  He  stood 
them  all  without  any  apparent  trouble,  and  two 
months  from  the  time  that  he  was  first  attacked 
not  a  sign  of  hydrophobia  had  developed.  Nor 
did  young  Meister  subsequently  ever  show  any 
symptom  of  it. 

Then  came  another  lad,  who  had  played  the 
part  of  hero,  a  young  shepherd  by  the  name  of 
J.  B.  Jupille,  who  successfully  underwent  the 
second  treatment  for  hydrophobia.  This  boy, 
fifteen  years  of  age,  had  fought  with  a  mad  dog 
on  the  lands  of  Villers-Farlay,  in  the  Jura,  in 
order  to  save  his  comrades,  five  other  young 


172  PASTEUR 

shepherds.  He  had  been  badly  bitten  in  the 
struggle,  and  his  case  was  more  serious  than 
that  of  Meister,  because  a  whole  week  had 
passed  between  the  day  on  which  he  had  re- 
ceived his  wounds  and  that  on  which  he  could 
be  inoculated.  Like  the  first  patient,  he  re- 
ceived the  hypodermic  from  Dr.  Grancher,  with 
the  assistance  of  Vulpian,  on  Tuesday,  October 
29th,  1885;  and,  after  a  series  of  injections  of 
vaccines,  he  was  immune  to  hydrophobia. 

It  was  at  the  meeting  of  the  Academy  of  Sci- 
ences, held  October  26th,  1885,  that  Pasteur 
made  his  communication  on  the  subject  of  hy- 
drophobia, preventive  vaccination  and  vaccina- 
tion after  bites,  as  applied  to  men.  Dr.  Vulpian 
responded  and  paid  homage  to  the  genius  of 
Pasteur : 

"The  Academy  will  not  be  surprised  if,  as  a 
member  of  the  section  of  medicine  and  surgery, 
I  ask  the  floor  in  order  to  express  the  senti- 
ments of  admiration  inspired  in  me  by  the  com- 
munication    of   M.    Pasteur.     These   will   be 


HYDROPHOBIA  173 

shared,  I  am  convinced,  by  the  medical  profes- 
sion as  a  whole. 

"Hydrophobia,  that  terrible  disease  against 
which  all  therapeutic  efforts  have  hitherto 
failed,  has  at  last  found  its  remedy.  M.  Pas- 
teur, who  has  had  no  precursor  but  himself 
along  this  route,  has  been  led  through  a  series 
of  researches,  uninterruptedly  pursued  for 
years,  to  create  a  method  of  treatment  by  the 
aid  of  which  it  is  possible  to  prevent,  beyond 
all  question,  the  development  of  hydrophobia 
in  a  man  recently  bitten  by  a  mad  dog.  I  say, 
beyond  all  question,  because,  after  what  I  have 
seen  in  M.  Pasteur's  laboratory,  I  cannot  myself 
doubt  the  permanent  success  of  this  treatment, 
whenever  it  is  applied  in  its  full  extent  within 
a  few  days  after  the  bite  has  been  received. 

"It  becomes  at  once  necessary  to  take  steps 
towards  the  organisation  of  a  public  system  of 
treatment  for  hydrophobia,  according  to  the 
Pasteur  method.  Every  individual  bitten  by 
a  mad  dog  ought  to  be  able  to  benefit  by  this 
great  discovery,  which  puts  the  seal  of  glory 


174  PASTEUR 

upon  our  illustrious  colleague,  and  is  destined 
to  redound  greatly  to  the  honour  of  our  coun- 
try." 

It  was  Pasteur's  destiny  never  to  triumph 
through  any  of  his  discoveries  until  after  he 
had  overcome  desperate  resistance.  The  value 
of  his  method  was  questioned  by  a  large  part 
of  the  profession,  he  was  ridiculed,  and  the 
comic  papers  published  caricatures  upon  his 
work. 

Pasteur's  enemies,  who  had  not  even  yet  dis- 
armed in  the  presence  of  his  genius,  renewed 
their  attacks  in  connection  with  a  failure  which 
occurred  in  December,  1885,  the  death  of  a 
young  girl,  Louise  Lepelletier,  who  had  been 
inoculated  thirty-seven  days  after  she  was  bit- 
ten. Nevertheless,  all  resistance  and  all  per- 
fidy disappeared  beneath  the  immense  flood  of 
enthusiasm  which  had  been  aroused  by  Pas- 
teur's discoveries.  A  public  system  of  vaccina- 
tion against  hydrophobia  was  installed,  and 
people  flocked  there  from  all  parts  of  France 
and  from  every  other  country.    Within  one  year 


HYDROPHOBIA  175 

and  two  months,  from  October,  1885,  to  De- 
cember, 1886,  2,682  persons  who  had  been  bit- 
ten were  treated  there,  and  out  of  this  number 
only  31  succumbed.  The  efficacy  of  the  method 
had  been  demonstrated. 

Pasteur  took  an  interest  in  the  children 
whom  he  treated,  and  lavished  caresses  and 
presents  on  them.  He  wrote  to  them,  after  the 
course  of  treatment  was  over,  trying  to  keep 
watch  of  their  subsequent  lives,  and  urging 
upon  them  the  advantages  of  honesty  and  in- 
dustry. The  great  man,  surrounded  with  the 
halo  of  glory,  and  over-burdened  with  his  la- 
bours and  his  thoughts,  found  himself  pa- 
ternally drawn  towards  these  little  ones — and 
they  were  his  best  source  of  repose. 


CHAPTER   IX 

THE  PASTEUR  INSTITUTE 

AFTER  the  close  of  the  war  of  1870  Pas- 
teur wrote  to  Emile  Duclaux,  expressing 
his  great  desire  to  gather  all  his  pupils  into  one 
establishment  of  which  he  should  be  the  mas- 
ter, and  where  they  could  work  together  for 
science  and  the  cure  of  disease,  in  accordance 
with  his  system  and  fertile  methods.  More 
than  twenty  years  were  destined  to  pass  before 
he  saw  the  realisation  of  this  wish  that  was  so 
dear  to  him,  and  he  was  not  only  infirm  but 
almost  helpless  when  he  entered  the  building 
that  was  to  bear  his  name. 

Thanks  to  the  movement  of  universal  en- 
thusiasm aroused  by  his  cure  for  hydrophobia, 
an  international  subscription  was  opened,  upon 
the  initiative  of  the  Academy  of  Sciences,  for 

176 


THE    PASTEUR   INSTITUTE      177 

the  purpose  of  founding  an  establishment  for 
vaccination  and  for  scientific  studies,  under  the 
title  of  the  Pasteur  Institute.  Within  a  few 
months  the  modest  mites  of  the  poor  and  the 
bank  notes  of  the  rich  and  generous  formed  a 
sum  amounting  to  2,586,680  francs  (approxi- 
mately $517,336.00),  and  the  Institute  build- 
ings, slowly  constructed,  were  inaugurated  by 
the  President  of  the  Republic,  Sadi-Carnot,  on 
the  14th  of  November,  1888.  The  ceremony 
took  place  in  the  library  hall  before  a  gathering 
including  delegations  from  learned  societies, 
cabinet  ministers,  members  of  the  Committee 
of  the  Institute,  presided  over  by  Joseph  Ber- 
trand,  prominent  statesmen  and  former  gov- 
ernment officials.  Doctor  Grancher,  treasurer 
of  the  Committee,  who  had  been  one  of  the  first 
to  recognise  the  value  of  the  method  of  vacci- 
nating against  hydrophobia,  celebrated  the  dis- 
coveries of  the  illustrious  scientist,  now  so 
nearly  vanquished  in  life's  struggle. 

"You  know,"  he  said  to  his  eminent  hearers, 
"that  M.  Pasteur  is  an  innovator,  that  his  ere- 


178  PASTEUR 

ative  imagination,  controlled  by  a  rigorous  ob- 
servation of  facts,  has  overthrown  many  errors, 
and  built  up  in  their  place  an  entirely  new  sci- 
ence. His  discoveries  relating  to  ferments,  to 
the  generation  of  infinitely  small  organisms, 
and  to  microbes  as  the  cause  of  contagious  dis- 
eases  have  constituted,  in  biological  chemistry, 
in  the  veterinary  art  and  in  medicine,  not  a 
regular  process,  but  a  radical  revolution.  Now 
revolutions,  even  those  inspired  by  scientific 
demonstrations,  leave  behind  them  wherever 
they  pass  some  victims  who  do  not  easily  for- 
give. Consequently  M.  Pasteur  has  a  number 
of  adversaries  scattered  throughout  the  world, 
not  to  count  those  French  Athenians  who  do 
not  like  to  see  the  same  man  always  in  the 
right  and  always  fortunate.  And,  as  though  his 
adversaries  were  not  already  numerous  enough, 
M.  Pasteur  made  himself  others  by  the  im- 
placable rigour  of  his  dialectics  and  the  dog- 
matic form  that  he  sometimes  gives  to  his 
thoughts.'^ 

To  this  discourse  of  Dr.  Grancher  Pasteur  re- 


THE    PASTEUR   INSTITUTE      179 

plied  in  lofty  and  noble  words,  in  which  there 
was  a  blending  of  melancholy  and  pride  and  of 
the  deep  confidence  that  he  had  in  the  powers 
of  science. 

"And  on  the  day  when,  foreseeing  the  future 
possibilities  that  would  be  opened  up  by  the 
discovery  of  the  virus" — so  ran  the  words  de- 
livered by  his  son,  for  Pasteur  himself  was  too 
much  overcome  by  suffering  and  emotion  to  de- 
liver them  in  person — ^T  appealed  directly  to 
my  country  to  enable  us  by  means  of  private 
subscriptions  to  build  laboratories  designed  not 
only  for  the  treatment  of  hydrophobia,  but  also 
for  the  study  of  virulent  and  contagious  dis- 
eases, that  same  day  France  gave  to  us  with 
lavish  hands     ... 

"And  here  we  see  it  finished,  this  grand  build- 
ing of  which  it  may  be  truly  said  that  there  is 
not  a  single  stone  that  is  not  the  material  sign 
of  a  generous  thought.  All  the  virtues  have 
paid  tribute  towards  the  erection  of  this  abode 
of  toil. 

"Alas,  it  is  my  most  poignant  sorrow  that  I 


180  PASTEUR 

enter  it  as  a  man  already  vanquished  by  age,  no 
longer  surrounded  by  any  of  my  former  mas- 
ters, nor  any  of  the  companions  of  my  strug- 
gles, neither  Dumas,  nor  Bouley,  nor  Paul  Bert, 
nor  Vulpian,  who,  after  having  been,  like  you, 
my  dear  Grancher,  the  counsellor  of  my  early 
efforts,  became  the  most  convinced  and  ener- 
getic defender  of  my  method! 

^'And  yet,  although  I  grieve  to  think  they  are 
no  longer  here,  after  having  taken  part  so  val- 
iantly in  controversies  which  I  never  provoked, 
but  which  I  was  forced  to  endure;  although 
they  cannot  hear  me  proclaim  what  I  owe  to 
their  counsels  and  support ;  although  I  feel  their 
absence  as  keenly  as  on  the  day  after  their 
death,  I  have  at  least  the  consolation  of  the 
thought  that  all  this  work  which  we  defended 
together  is  destined  not  to  perish.  And  this 
faith  in  our  science  is  shared  by  the  collaborat- 
ors and  disciples  here  present. 

''Hold  fast  to  the  enthusiasm,  my  dear  col- 
laborators, which  has  been  yours  since  the  ear- 
liest hour,  but  make  strict  accuracy  its  insep- 


THE   PASTEUR   INSTITUTE      181 

arable  companion.  Assert  nothing  that  cannot 
be  proved  in  some  simple  and  decisive  fashion. 

^'Cultivate  the  critical  spirit.  Taken  by  it- 
self, it  is  neither  an  awakener  of  ideas  nor  an 
incentive  to  great  deeds.  But  without  it  noth- 
ing is  stable.  It  always  has  the  last  word.  This 
which  I  ask  of  you,  and  which  you  in  turn  will 
ask  of  the  disciples  whom  you  train,  is  the  thing 
which  of  all  others  is  most  difficult  for  an  in- 
ventor. 

^To  believe  that  you  have  discovered  an  im- 
portant scientific  fact,  to  feel  a  feverish  desire 
to  proclaim  it,  and  yet  to  force  yourself,  for 
days  and  weeks,  sometimes  for  years,  to  combat 
your  own  discovery,  to  do  your  utmost  to  dis- 
prove your  own  experiments,  and  to  refrain 
from  announcing  what  you  have  discovered  un- 
til you  have  exhausted  every  contrary  hypothe- 
sis, that  indeed  is  an  arduous  task. 

'^But  when,  after  all  these  efforts,  you  arrive 
at  certainty,  you  experience  one  of  the  greatest 
joys  that  the  human  soul  can  know,  and  the 
thought  that  you  will  contribute  to  the  honour 


182  PASTEUR 

of  your  country  renders  this  joy  even  more  pro- 
found. 

"Even  if  science  has  no  country,  the  man  of 
science  must  needs  have  one,  and  it  is  to  her 
that  he  should  give  the  credit  for  the  influence 
which  his  labours  may  have  throughout  the 
world. 

"If  I  may  be  permitted,  Mr.  President,  to 
close  with  a  philosophic  reflection  brought  to 
my  mind  by  your  presence  in  this  hall  of  toil,  I 
would  like  to  say  that  it  seems  to  me  that  two 
contrary  la;ws  are  today  at  war:  one,  a  law  of 
blood  and  death,  which,  by  daily  inventing  new 
methods  of  combat,  forces  the  peoples  to  be  for- 
ever ready  for  the  field  of  battle ;  and  the  other, 
a  law  of  peace  and  labour  and  health,  which 
dreams  only  of  delivering  mankind  from  the 
scourges  that  beset  it. 

"The  one  seeks  only  violent  conquests,  the 
other  only  the  assuagement  of  human  ills.  The 
latter  places  a  single  human  life  above  all  vic- 
tories; the  former  would  sacrifice  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  existences  to  the  ambition  of  one 


THE    PASTEUR    INSTITUTE      183 

man  alone.  The  law  of  which  we  are  the  in- 
struments seeks,  even  in  the  midst  of  carnage, 
to  stay  the  bloody  havoc  wrought  by  the  law  of 
war.  The  bandaging  inspired  by  our  antiseptic 
methods  may  preserve  thousands  of  soldiers. 
Which  of  these  laws  will  be  victorious  over  the 
other?  God  alone  knows.  But  of  this  we  may 
be  assured,  that  French  science  will  do  its  ut- 
most, in  obedience  to  the  law  of  humanity,  to 
extend  the  frontiers  of  life." 

What  lofty  accents,  and  how  well  they  sum 
up  the  philosophy  of  the  long  and  laborious 
effort  which  Pasteur  unfalteringly  sustained! 
He  had  reached  his  home,  vanquished  by  life, 
to  use  his  own  expression,  but  it  was  peopled 
by  active  toilers,  his  pupils  and  disciples,  who 
were  imbued  with  his  method  and  would  con- 
tinue to  carry  on  his  work,  one  and  all  obedient 
to  his  temperament  and  genius  as  a  scientist. 

The  first  buildings,  erected  on  the  Rue  Dutot, 
are  devoted  to  the  service  of  the  bacteriological 
Institute.  They  cover  a  surface  space  of  eleven 
thousand  square  metres,  and  consist  of  two  vast 


184  PASTEUR 

two-story  pavillions,  parallel  to  the  street,  and 
connected  by  a  third  midway  between  them. 

They  contain,  besides  the  laboratories,  the 
study  halls,  and  a  library  where  scientific 
works  may  be  consulted,  and  which  also  con- 
tains busts  of  Pasteur,  of  Don  Pedro,  of  Alex- 
ander III,  of  Mme.  Purtado-Heine,  of  Mme. 
Boucicaut,  of  M.  A.  de  Rothschild  and  of  the 
Count  de  Laubespin,  all  benefactors  of  the  In- 
stitute. It  is  also  adorned  by  two  paintings, 
the  one  representing  Emile  Duclaux,  the  other 
Professor  Metchnikoff.  Work  in  this  fine  and 
spacious  chamber  is  facilitated  by  the  cordial 
welcome  of  its  librarian,  M.  Roussel.  An  apart- 
ment has  been  reserved  for  Pasteur;  it  is  at 
present  occupied  by  Dr.  Roux,  director  of  the 
institute. 

All  the  working  rooms,  whatever  their  dimen- 
sions, are  finished  according  to  the  same  model, 
without  colours,  and  with  varnished  walls,  with 
the  result  that  there  is  always  the  most  abso- 
lute cleanliness. 

The  department  for  the  treatment  of  hydro- 


THE   PASTEUR   INSTITUTE      185 

phobia  is  installed  on  the  ground  floor;  it  in- 
cludes a  waiting  room,  an  examination  room,  an 
inoculation  room,  besides  a  laboratory,  in  which 
are  preserved  the  marrows  of  infected  rabbits, 
which  are  used  for  the  preparation  of  vaccines. 
In  the  left  wing  are  situated  a  lecture  room,  a 
laboratory  for  the  preparation  of  culture 
mediums  and  a  dissecting  room.  The  first  floor 
is  given  over  to  the  course  in  the  technical  study 
of  microbes,  and  the  second  floor  is  used  for  the 
researches  of  young  scientists  who  have  been 
admitted  for  the  purpose  of  carrying  on  their 
personal  studies. 

The  active  work  of  the  Bacteriological  Insti- 
tute is  divided  into  four  main  branches:  the 
department  of  vaccines,  the  department  of  hy- 
drophobia, the  department  of  technical  mi- 
crobiology, and  the  department  of  Metchnikoff. 

After  the  erection  of  the  Bacteriological  In- 
stitute, the  Serotherapic  Institute  was  founded, 
as  a  result  of  the  discovery,  by  Dr.  Roux,  of  the 
vaccine  for  croup,  and,  next,  the  Institute  of 
Biological  CHemistry. 


186  PASTEUR 

The  Pasteur  Institute,  as  a  collective  whole, 
which  had  for  its  first  director  the  illustrious 
scientist,  Emile  Duclaux,  forms  a  vast  organ- 
ism, in  which  the  most  precious  discoveries  are 
evolved.  It  is  frequented  by  large  numbers  of 
students,  both  native  and  foreign.  It  has 
thrown  forth  branches  throughout  the  world, 
and  there  is  today  no  country  that  does  not  pos- 
sess a  Pasteur  Institute.  We  find  them  in  Rus- 
sia, Turkey,  Italy,  Brazil,  the  Argentine  Repub- 
lic, the  French  colonies,  Tunis,  Indo-China, 
Morocco,  Cambodia,  etc.  Every  year  a  new 
building  rises  in  some  corner  of  the  earth  where 
there  is  some  special  malady  to  conquer,  and 
whither  a  remedy  may  be  brought.  Commis- 
sions set  forth  from  the  Institute  in  the  Rue 
Dutot  to  go  and  study  on  the  spot  these  great 
epidemics,  the  modern  scourges  which  must  be 
conquered. 

The  Pasteur  Institute,  today  directed  by  Dr. 
Roux,  is  an  incomparable  working  laboratory, 
in  which  the  most  precious  discoveries  are  being 
evolved,  and  it  is  also  an  admirable  instrument 


THE    PASTEUR   INSTITUTE      187 

for  the  promulgation  of  France's  contributions 
to  science.  

dU»  eai>»*i*»t*#    J-a«*t  J^#<'|U  |>**«^  6^    '{i.WamI 


Page  from  Pasteur's  Note-Book,  while  Professor  of 

Chemistry 

(Preserved  at  the  Ecole  Nor  male) 


CHAPTER   X 

THE  SUPREME  HOMAGE 

PASTEUR  was  seventy  years  of  age.  From 
his  earliest  years  of  study  he  had  conse- 
crated his  life  to  science,  and  unwaveringly, 
with  tireless  energy,  that  neither  envious  at- 
tacks nor  bodily  illness  could  break  down,  he 
had  pursued,  through  a  chain  of  strong  and 
harmonious  logic,  the  revolution  which  his 
genius  had  introduced  into  science  and  medi- 
cine. Now,  in  spite  of  the  last  selfish  resist- 
ance of  those  who  were  not  willing  to  surrender 
to  the  evidence  of  the  truth,  his  name  had  be- 
come famous  throughout  the  world,  his 
methods  were  introduced  into  numberless 
laboratories,  his  discoveries  were  everywhere 
being  applied  with  success.     Pasteur,  bowed 

with  suffering  and  with  years,  almost  incapaci- 

188 


THE    SUPREME    HOMAGE        189 

tated  to  do  further  work,  was  surrounded  by 
universal  admiration  and  by  the  personal  affec- 
tion of  that  group  of  scientists  who,  within  his 
Institute,  were  pursuing  their  personal  re- 
searches along  the  path  that  he  had  traced. 

It  was  at  this  epoch  that  various  committees 
were  formed,  both  in  France  and  abroad,  for 
the  purpose  of  celebrating  the  seventieth  anni- 
versary of  his  birth.  The  movement  emanated 
from  Denmark,  Sweden  and  Norway,  while  at 
Paris  the  Academy  of  Sciences  was  deeply 
stirred,  on  the  7th  of  November,  1892,  by  a  let- 
ter from  its  section  of  medicine  and  surgery, 
asking  that  homage  should  be  paid  to  the  illus- 
trious scientist. 

"Monsieur  the  President:  Monsieur  Pasteur 
will  be  seventy  years  of  age  on  the  27th  of  next 
December. 

"The  section  of  medicine  and  surgery  feels  that 
it  ought  to  take  the  initiative  in  celebrating  this 
glorious  anniversary.  Yet,  while  medicine  and  sur- 
gery both  owe  M.  Pasteur  a  boundless  admiration 
and  gratitude,  we  know  that  the  Institute  as  a  whole 
is  united  in  this  same  sentiment. 


190  PASTEUR 

'^Accordingly  we  propose  to  invite  our  colleagues 
in  the  Institute,  as  well  as  all  others  who  have 
benefitted  from  the  labours  and  discoveries  of  M. 
Pasteur,  either  in  the  domain  of  scientific  research, 
or  in  the  practice  of  their  art,  to  contribute  to  a 
subscription  raised  for  the  purpose  of  offering  our 
illustrious  compatriot  a  souvenir  and  a  homage 
on  the  occasion  of  this  jubilee. 

"To  this  end  the  section  of  medicine  and  surgery 
has  constituted  itself  a  subscription  committee.  M. 
Duclaux  has  kindly  consented  to  co-operate  with 
us,  and  Professor  Grancher  has  undertaken  the  du- 
ties of  secretary  of  the  committee. 

"We  beg  that  our  colleagues  will  send  their  offer- 
ings to  the  office  of  the  secretary  of  the  Institute. 
"The  Members  of  the  Committee: 

"Marey,  Charcot,  Brown-Sequard,  Grancher, 
Bouchard,  Verneuil,  Guyon,  Duclaux." 

The  Academy  of  Sciences  hastened  to  com- 
ply with  the  desire  of  its  section  of  medicine, 
and  at  the  following  meeting  Pasteur  expressed 
his  thanks  to  his  colleagues. 

"I  was  not  present/'  he  said,  "at  the  opening 
of  the  last  meeting,  when  the  President  read 
the  letter  from  the  section  of  medicine  and  sur- 
gery. 


THE    SUPREME   HOMAGE        191 

"Someone  was  kind  enough  to  detain  me  out- 
side. It  was  well  he  did  so.  I  should  have 
been  too  deeply  moved  to  return  adequate 
thanks  to  my  colleagues  for  the  excessive  hon- 
our they  are  preparing  for  me.  Even  today  I 
am  unable  to  express  all  the  emotion  and  grati- 
tude that  I  feel.'' 

Roty,  a  member  of  the  Institute,  was  chosen 
to  execute  the  medal  which  was  to  be  presented 
to  him,  and  Messrs.  Bouchard  and  Guyon  un- 
dertook to  arrange  the  details  of  the  Jubilee. 

It  took  place  on  December  27th,  1892,  in  the 
presence  of  the  President  of  the  Republic,  Sadi- 
Carnot,  in  the  great  amphitheatre  of  the  new 
Sorbonne. 

Seated  on  the  platform  were  to  be  seen,  to 
the  right  of  the  President's  chair,  Messrs.  d'Ab- 
badie.  President  of  the  Academy  of  Sciences; 
Le  Royer,  President  of  the  Senate;  Ribot, 
President  of  the  Council  of  Ministers ;  the  Am- 
bassadors from  Russia,  England,  Austria-Hun- 
gary, Belgium,  Portugal,  the  Netherlands, 
Sweden  and  Norway,  Denmark  and  Bavaria; 


192  PASTEUR 

on  the  left,  Messrs.  Joseph  Bertrand,  perma- 
nent Secretary  of  the  iicademy  of  Sciences; 
Charles  Floquet,  President  of  the  Chamber; 
Charles  Dupuy,  Minister  of  Public  Instruction, 
and  all  the  other  Ministers.  Behind  these  offi- 
cial personages  were  the  delegations  from  the 
Institute,  the  Academy  of  Medicine,  and  for- 
eign scientific  societies ;  M.  Greard,  Vice-Rector 
of  the  Academy  of  Paris;  M.  Perrot,  Director 
of  the  Ecole  Normale;  the  deans  of  the  facul- 
ties, the  presidents  of  the  Court  of  Cassation, 
of  the  Council  of  State  and  of  the  Court  of  Ap- 
peals. 

The  auditorium  was  occupied  by  delegations 
from  the  schools  and  faculties,  the  General  As- 
sociation of  Students,  the  hospital  staffs,  the 
Ecole  Normale  Superieure,  the  Polytechnique, 
the  Faculty  of  Medicine,  the  Faculty  of  Sci- 
ences, and  the  School  of  Pharmacy. 

It  was  a  chosen  assemblage,  wrought  to  the 
highest  pitch  of  enthusiasm,  and  comprising 
representatives  of  all  that  was  best  in  art  and 
science  and  intellectual  thought.    At  half-past 


THE   SUPREME   HOMAGE        193 

ten  Louis  Pasteur  made  his  entry,  leaning  on 
the  arm  of  the  President  of  the  Republic,  while 
the  band  of  the  Republican  Guard  saluted  him 
with  a  triumphal  march,  and  the  entire  assem- 
blage arose  to  its  feet  and  acclaimed  him  with 
rounds  of  applause.  Pasteur  seated  himself 
before  a  little  table  on  the  platform,  in  order 
to  receive  the  addresses  of  the  delegates,  and 
the  President  of  the  Academy  of  Sciences,  M. 
d'Abbadie,  opened  the  meeting  and  gave  the 
floor  to  M.  Charles  Dupuy,  Minister  of  Public 
Instruction.  After  summing  up  the  works  of 
Pasteur,  and  extending  a  greeting  to  the  for- 
eign delegates,  M.  Dupuy  concluded  by  point- 
ing out  the  significance  of  the  Jubilee: 

"But  what  characterises  this  ceremony  be- 
yond all  else,  what  gives  your  Jubilee  its  dis- 
tinctive mark,''  he  said,  "is  that  our  homage  is 
extended  less  to  the  past  than  to  the  future; 
science,  on  behalf  of  which  the  whole  universe 
is  in  your  debt,  has  received  from  you  a  sure 
method  and  a  definite  principle;    but,  as  you 


194  PASTEUR 

yourself  have  said,  the  era  of  its  application  has 
only  just  commenced. 

'The  Pasteur  Institute,  built  and  endowed 
through  the  gratitude  and  admiration  of  peo- 
ples and  of  governments,  for  the  purpose  of 
serving  both  as  a  centre  of  high  scientific  cul- 
ture and  as  a  source  of  relief  for  the  ills  of  the 
human  race,  will  realise  your  hopes. 

''May  you  long  continue,  dear  and  illustrious 
master,  to  preside  over  the  destinies  of  this 
young  and  glorious  edifice,  and  animate  with 
your  inspiring  ardour  the  phalanx  of  disciples 
who  will  surely  fulfil  the  promises  of  the  Pas- 
teur doctrine.  May  France  possess  you  for 
long  years  yet  to  come,  and  distinguish  you  be- 
fore the  world  as  the  worthy  object  of  her  love, 
her  gratitude  and  her  pride." 

After  M.  d'Abbadie  had  presented  Pasteur 
with  the  great  golden  medal  engraved  by  Roty, 
addresses  were  made  by  Messrs.  Bertrand  and 
Daubree,  and  then  by  the  famous  English  sur- 
geon. Lister,  in  the  name  of  the  Royal  Society 
of  London. 


THE    SUPREME   HOMAGE        195 

"Monsieur  Pasteur/'  he  said,  '^the  great  hon- 
our has  been  accorded  me  of  bringing  you  the 
homage  of  the  sciences  of  medicine  and  sur- 
gery. 

"As  a  matter  of  fact,  there  is  no  one  living  in 
the  entire  world  to  whom  the  medical  sciences 
owe  so  much  as  they  do  to  you.  Your  re- 
searches in  regard  to  fermentations  have  shed  a 
powerful  light  'that  has  illumined  the  fatal 
darkness  of  surgery  and  changed  the  treatment 
of  wounds  from  a  matter  of  empiricism,  uncer- 
tain and  too  often  disastrous,  to  a  scientific  art 
of  assured  beneficence. 

"Thanks  to  you,  surgery  has  undergone  a 
complete  revolution  which  has  robbed  it  of  its 
terrors  and  extended  its  efiicacious  powers  al- 
most without  limit. 

"Medicine  is  indebted,  no  less  than  surgery, 
to  your  profound  and  philosophic  studies.  You 
have  lifted  the  veil  which  for  centuries  had 
overhung  infectious  diseases.  You  have  dis- 
covered and  demonstrated  their  microbic  na- 
ture; thanks  to  your  initiative,  and  in  many 


196  PASTEUR 

cases  to  your  special  and  personal  labours,  there 
are  already  a  number  of  these  pernicious  disor- 
ders of  the  causes  of  which  we  have  a  com- 
plete knowledge. 

"Felix  qui  potuit  rerum  cognoscere  causas. 

'This  knowledge  has  already  perfected  in  a 
surprising  fashion  the  diagnosis  of  these 
scourges  of  the  human  race,  and  has  pointed 
out  the  path  which  must  be  followed  in  their 
prophylactic  and  curative  treatment.  On  this 
path  your  fine  discoveries  of  the  attenuation 
and  reinforcement  of  viruses  and  preventive 
inoculations  serve  and  will  always  continue  to 
serve  as  guiding  stars. 

"As  a  brilliant  illustration,  I  may  refer  to 
your  services  in  regard  to  hydrophobia.  Their 
originality  is  so  striking,  both  in  respect  to 
pathology  and  to  therapeutics,  that  in  the  be- 
ginning many  physicians  were  mistrustful  of 
you. 

"  'Is  it  possible,'  they  said  to  me,  'that  a  man 
who  is  neither  a  physician  nor  a  biologist  can 
instruct  us  after  this  fashion  regarding  a  dis- 


THE    SUPREME   HOMAGE        197 

ease  over  which  the  finest  brains  in  the  medical 
profession  have  laboured  in  vain?^ 

''Quis  novus  hie  nostris  successit  sedibus 
hospesf 

^Tor  my  part,  I  knew  only  too  well  the  bril- 
liance of  your  genius,  the  scrupulous  care  of 
your  inductions,  and  your  absolute  honesty,  to 
share  such  opinions  for  a  moment.  My  confi- 
dence has  been  amply  justified  by  the  results, 
because,  with  the  insignificant  exception  of  a 
few  ignorant  persons,  the  whole  world  now  rec- 
ognises the  greatness  of  your  victory  over  this 
terrible  malady.  You  have  furnished  a  method 
of  diagnosis  which  puts  an  end,  beyond  ques- 
tion, to  the  torturing  uncertainty  which  for- 
merly haunted  anyone  who  had  been  bitten  by 
a  dog  which,  although  healthy,  was  suspected 
of  being  mad.  This  alone  would  have  sufficed 
to  assure  you  the  eternal  gratitude  of  humanity. 

"But  through  your  marvellous  system  of  in- 
oculations against  hydrophobia  you  have  suc- 
ceeded in  following  up  the  poison  after  its  en- 
try into  the  system  and  have  vanquished  it. 


198  PASTEUR 

''Monsieur  Pasteur,  infectious  diseases  con- 
stitute, as  you  know,  the  great  majority  of 
maladies  that  afflict  the  human  race.  You  can 
therefore  well  understand  that  the  sciences  of 
medicine  and  surgery  are  eager,  upon  this  sol- 
emn occasion,  to  offer  you  the  profound  homage 
of  their  admiration  and  gratitude." 

At  the  close  of  this  address  the  two  great 
scientists  exchanged  affectionate  greetings  in 
the  midst  of  tumultuous  enthusiasm.  Further 
addresses  were  delivered  by  M.  Bergeron,  per- 
manent secretary  of  the  Academy  of  Medicine, 
and  by  M.  Sauton,  President  of  the  Municipal 
Council  of  Paris.  The  delegations  then  filed 
past  the  little  table  behind  which  Pasteur  was 
seated,  and  laid  their  addresses  on  it. 

England  was  represented  not  only  by  Lister, 
but  by  Burdon-Sanderson,  Grath,  MoUoy, 
Pavy,  Percival  Wright,  Roscoe,  Ray  Lancaster, 
Ruffer,  Sydney  Martin,  Woodhead,  Plimmer; 
Germany  by  Haskovec  and  Schottelius;  Bel- 
gium by  Berlier,  Van  Beneden,  Casimir,  De- 
paire,   Errera,   Laurent,   Parmentier,   Pechere, 


THE   SUPREME   HOMAGE        199 

Rousseau,  Rufferath,  de  Wilde;  Denmark  by 
Jacobsen,  Salomonsen,  Studgaard,  Wanscher; 
Spain  by  Chiron  and  Gener;  Holland  by  En- 
gelmann,  Pekelharing,  Sponck,  Stokvis,  Van 
Overbecle  de  Meyer;  Italy  by  Campana  and 
Perroncito;  Russia  by  Metchnikoff  and  Wino- 
gradsky;  Poland  by  Benni,  Bujwid  and  Gale- 
zowski;  Sweden  and  Norway  by  Hjartdahl, 
Malm,  Lindstrom,  Nordenson,  Selander ;  Switz- 
erland by  Cerenville,  d'Espine,  Ladame,  Soret, 
Tarel,  Sulzer.  The  leading  scientific  soci- 
eties also  had  their  delegates;  the  University 
of  Athens  was  represented  by  M.  Panas, 
and  the  Berlin  Society  of  Medicine  and  Fac- 
ulty of  Medicine  by  M.  Bouchard.  There 
were  still  other  delegations,  from  the  Society 
of  Medicine  at  Berne,  the  Belgian  Society  of 
Microscopy,  and  the  Society  of  Students  of 
the  Civil  Hospitals  of  Brussels,  from  the  Acad- 
emic College  of  Bucharest  and  the  University 
of  Christiania,  from  the  Association  of  Hygiene 
at  Cologne,  from  the  Academy  of  Copenhagen, 
etc. 


200  PASTEUR 

The  French  delegations  were  called  forward 
in  their  turn,  and  those  from  Dole  and  Arbois 
attracted  special  attention  because,  in  the  midst 
of  this  glorious  ceremony,  they  called  to  mind 
the  humble  origin  of  Pasteur;  the  mayor  of 
Dole  offered  him  in  the  name  of  its  citizens  an 
album  containing  reproductions  of  his  birth 
certificate  and  of  the  little  house  in  which  he 
was  born.  This  was  an  intimate  note,  tender 
and  touching. 

Pasteur's  reply  to  these  discourses  celebrat- 
ing his  glory  had  to  be  read  by  his  son;  it  is  a 
page  of  grave  eloquence,  and  forms  as  it  were 
his  moral  and  scientific  testament.  Here  is  the 
complete  text,  which  deserves  to  be  preserved 
as  one  of  the  most  beautiful  monuments  of 
French  thought. 

"Monsieur  the  President  of  the  Republic: 
Your  presence  transforms  everything;  an  intimate 
festival  becomes  a  great  festival,  and  the  simple  an- 
niversary of  the  birth  of  a  scientist  will  remain, 
thanks  to  you,  a  date  in  the  history  of  French  sci- 
ence.    V 


THE   SUPREME   HOMAGE        201 

"Monsieur  the  Minister: 

"Gentlemen  :  In  the  midst  of  all  this  brilliance 
my  first  thought  reverts  regretfully  to  all  those  men 
of  science  who  spent  their  lives  in  vain  endeavours. 
In  the  past  they  had  to  struggle  against  prejudices 
which  stifled  their  ideas.  These  prejudices  con- 
quered, they  still  encountered  other  obstacles  and 
difl&culties  of  all  sorts. 

"It  was  only  a  few  years  ago,  before  the  public 
authorities  and  the  municipal  council  had  begun  to 
provide  magnificent  abodes  for  science,  that  a  man 
whom  I  greatly  loved  and  admired,  Claude  Ber- 
nard, possessed  as  his  sole  laboratory  a  low  and 
humid  cellar,  only  a  few  steps  from  here.  Perhaps 
it  was  in  that  cellar  that  he  contracted  the  disease 
which  caused  his  death.  Upon  learning  of  the  re- 
ception you  were  preparing  for  me  tonight,  his  was 
the  first  image  that  rose  before  my  mind.  I  salute 
the  memory  of  that  great  man. 

"Gentlemen,  though  an  ingenious  and  delicate 
thought,  it  would  seem  as  though  you  had  wished 
to  cause  a  vision  of  my  entire  life  to  pass  before 
my  eyes.  One  of  my  compatriots  from  the  Jura,  the 
mayor  of  the  city  of  Dole,  has  brought  me  a  photo- 
graph of  the  very  humble  home  in  which  my  father 
and  mother  lived  their  hard  and  needy  life. 

"The  presence  of  all  these  students  from  the  Ecole 


202  PASTEUR 

Normale  reminds  me  of  the  intoxication  of  my  first 
scientific  enthusiasms. 

"The  representatives  of  the  Faculty  of  Lille  evoke 
the  memory  of  my  first  studies  in  crystalography 
and  fermentations,  which  opened  to  me  an  entire 
new  world.  What  boundless  hopes  took  possession 
of  me  when  I  first  grasped  the  fact  that  there  were 
laws  behind  all  those  obscure  phenomena! 

''You,  my  dear  colleagues,  have  yourselves  been 
witnesses  of  the  series  of  deductions  that  permitted 
me,  as  a  disciple  of  the  experimental  method,  to  ar- 
rive at  physiological  studies.  If  at  times  I  have 
troubled  the  calm  of  our  Academies  with  somewhat 
heated  discussions,  it  was  because  I  was  passion- 
ately defending  the  truth. 

"You,  lastly,  delegates  from  foreign  nations,  who 
have  come  from  so  far  to  give  proof  of  your  sym- 
pathy towards  France,  you  bring  me  the  most  pro- 
found joy  that  can  be  felt  by  a  man  who  believes 
invincibly  that  science  and  peace  will  triumph  over 
ignorance  and  war;  that  the  various  peoples  will 
come  to  an  agreement  not  to  destroy,  but  to  build 
up;  and  that  the  future  will  belong  to  those  who 
have  done  the  most  for  suffering  humanity.  I  appeal 
to  you,  by  dear  Lister,  and  to  you  all,  illustrious 
representatives  of  science  and  medicine  and  surgery. 

"Young  men,  young  men,  put  your  confidence  in 
these  sure  and  powerful  methods,  from  which  we 


THE   SUPREME   HOMAGE       203 

have  as  yet  learned  only  the  first  secrets.  And  I 
say  to  all  of  you,  whatever  your  career  may  be, 
guard  yourselves  from  the  taint  of  destructive  and 
sterile  scepticism,  refuse  to  be  discouraged  by  the 
sadness  of  certain  hours  which  pass  over  a  nation. 
Live  in  the  serene  peace  of  laboratories  and  libra- 
ries. Say  to  yourselves  at  first:  What  have  I  done 
towards  my  own  education?  And  then,  in  propor- 
tion as  you  advance:  What  have  I  done  for  my 
country?  Do  so  up  to  the  moment  when,  perhaps, 
you  may  have  the  immense  happiness  of  thinking 
that  you  have  contributed  in  some  measure  to  the 
progress  and  well-being  of  humanity.  But,  whether 
life  favours  your  efforts  to  a  greater  or  a  less  extent, 
one  must  have  earned  the  right  to  say  when  the 
great  goal  draws  near:  'I  have  done  what  I  could.* 
"Gentlemen,  I  wish  to  express  my  profound  emo- 
tion and  my  deepest  gratitude.  Just  as  the  great 
artist,  Roty,  on  the  reverse  side  of  this  medal,  has 
hidden  under  roses  the  date  of  heavy  years  that 
weigh  upon  my  life,  so  you,  my  dear  colleagues, 
have  wished  to  give  to  my  old  age  a  spectacle  to 
gladden  it  immensely,  the  spectacle  of  all  this  eager 
and  affectionate  youth." 

The  ceremony,  notwithstanding  that  it  was 
ofl&cial,  ended  in  an  outburst  of  enthusiasm  that 
gave  it  a  high  human  significance. 


204  PASTEUR 

Louis  Pasteur  had  fulfilled  his  task.  The  ro- 
bust toiler,  genius  and  dogged  will  combined, 
could  now  rest  among  his  disciples,  who  con- 
tinued the  struggle  in  his  place  and  according 
to  his  methods  on  behalf  of  science  and  against 
disease,  in  order  to  ^'extend  the  frontiers  of 
life." 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE  LAST  DAYS  OF  A  GREAT  MAN 

EVER  since  his  first  attacks  of  paralysis 
Pasteur  had  retained  a  certain  heaviness 
in  his  movements,  and,  while  his  brain  was  in- 
tact, experiments  demanding  a  supreme  manual 
dexterity  had  become  difficult  for  him.  He  was 
forced  regretfully  to  abandon  his  labours,  still 
unsatisfied  with  what  he  had  achieved,  and  with 
his  imagination  still  active  and  dreaming  of 
discoveries  that  still  evaded  him.  Pasteur  con- 
tinued to  follow  the  experiments  of  his  disci- 
ples, which  were  born  of  his  methods,  but  what 
he  wanted  v^as  the  power  to  push  onward  by 
himself  to  the  extreme  limits  of  the  new  path 
which  his  genius  had  laid  open.  However,  he 
accepted  his  destiny  without  bitterness.  He 
was  able  to  share  the  delight  of  Dr.  Roux  when 
205 


206  PASTEUR 

the  latter's  labours  resulted  in  the  discovery 
of  a  vaccine  for  diphtheria^  which  had  previ- 
ously decimated  the  lives  of  children.  Then 
croup  was  vanquished,  just  as  rabies  and  an- 
thrax had  been  before  it;  thousands  of  exist- 
ences, and  those  of  the  most  precious  sort,  for 
the  future  of  the  race  slumbered  in  them,  had 
thus  been  saved.  Dr.  Yersin,  for  his  part,  dis- 
covered the  microbe  of  the  plague;  while  the 
whole  band  of  workers,  who  had  come  to  be 
known  as  'Tasteurians,''  each  following  his  in- 
dividual aptitudes  and  tastes,  rivalled  one  an- 
other in  zealous  service  of  science  and  human- 
ity. 

It  was  at  this  period  of  researches  and  dis- 
coveries, based  on  his  doctrines  and  his  proc- 
esses as  an  experimenter,  that  Louis  Pasteur 
was  attacked  by  the  malady  from  which  he 
was  destined  to  die.  On  the  1st  of  November, 
1894,  he  had  an  attack  of  uremia,  and  there  fol- 
lowed a  long,  slow  agony,  lasting  for  months, 
with  alternations  of  hope  and  despair.  Pas- 
teur endured  it  with  Christian  resignation,  for 


THE    LAST   DAYS  207 

science  in  his  case  had  in  no  way  destroyed 
faith,  and  throughout  his  life  he  had  remained 
a  practical  Catholic.  His  pupils  took  turns  in 
watching  beside  him,  thus  showing  that  he  had 
not  only  been  able  to  arouse  their  scientific  en- 
thusiasm, but  had  also  attached  them  to  him  by 
his  kindliness  and  bigness  of  heart. 

"At  the  end  of  December,"  writes  M.  Vallery- 
Radot,  "we  began  to  have  hope.  On  the  1st  of 
January,  after  receiving  all  of  his  collaborators 
down  to  the  youngest  of  the  laboratory  attend- 
ants, Pasteur  saw  one  of  his  colleagues  of  the 
Academie  Frangaise  enter  the  room. 

"It  was  Alexandre  Dumas.  He  had  a  bou- 
quet of  roses  with  him,  and  was  accompanied 
by  one  of  his  daughters. 

"  'I  wanted  to  begin  the  year  well,'  he  said ; 
^I  bring  you  all  my  best  wishes.'  " 

\  Ever  since  they  first  met,  twelve  years  be- 
fore, on  a  certain  Thursday  at  the  Academie 
Frangaise,  Alexandre  Dumas  and  Pasteur  had 
felt  themselves  mutually  drawn  towards  each 
other.    Pasteur,  charmed  at  first  by  the  swift 


208  PASTEUR 

deductions  of  this  brilliant  mind,  had  been  sur- 
prised, touched,  deeply  moved  by  the  courtesies 
and  delicate  attentions  that  were  prompted  by 
a  heart  which  opened  to  friendship  all  the  more 
widely  because  it  opened  only  in  deep  earnest. 
Dumas,  who  had  a  wide  experience  of  men, 
loved  and  admired  Pasteur  as  a  genius  without 
pride  and  full  of  kindliness.  On  this  New 
Year's  afternoon  he  fell  to  chatting  with  a  cor- 
diality that  contained  something  of  the  un- 
quenchable gaiety  of  his  father.  In  this  little 
chamber  adjoining  the  laboratory,  how  remote 
he  was  from  all  the  worlds  that  he  had  studied, 
the  worlds  inhabited  by  the  class  of  beings  he 
had  studied,  ^'microbes  in  human  form,"  as  he 
called  them,  creatures  that  were  either  danger- 
ous, ridiculous  or  vile!  Occasionally,  however, 
he  had  shown  upon  the  stage  man  as  he  might 
be,  and  as  he  ought  to  be,  a  Montaiglin,  a 
Claude,  ^'poor,  well-meaning  man,  out  of  place 
in  our  times."  For  back  of  this  dramatic  au- 
thor was  a  man  eager  to  exert  a  moral  influence, 
back  of  the  realist  a  symbolist,  back  of  the  satir- 


THE   LAST   DAYS  209 

ist  a  mystic.  After  having  hungered  for  glory 
he  placed  higher  than  all  else  the  desire  to  be 
useful.  And  the  glance  of  his  blue  eyes,  ordi- 
narily cold  and  keen,  seeming  to  penetrate  one's 
most  secret  thoughts,  this  glance,  always  on 
guard,  always  ironic,  took  on  an  expression  of 
affectionate  veneration  for  him  whom  he  called 
^'our  dear  and  great  Pasteur."  It  is  only  those 
who  are  accustomed  to  tend  the  sick  can  know 
how  much  pleasure  certain  visits  give  them. 
That  of  Alexandre  Dumas  Pasteur  compared 
to  a  ray  of  sunshine.    (Vie  de  Pasteur.) 

The  illustrious  old  man  still  had  a  few  more 
happy  hours  before  him;  but,  although  he  was 
removed  to  Villeneuve-l'Etang,  the  change  to 
the  country  brought  no  improvement  to  his 
condition,  which  had  now  become  hopeless. 

Pasteur  resigned  himself  to  die,  and  neverthe- 
less he  took  great  care  to  hide  his  sufferings,  in 
order  to  spare  the  feelings  of  his  family  and  his 
disciples.  He  was  not,  however,  always  master 
of  his  own  emotions.  Happening,  one  evening, 
to  be  alone  with  his  grandchildren,  the  son  and 


210  PASTEUR 

daughter  of  M.  and  Mme.  Vallery-Radot,  he 
took  them  in  his  arms  and  kissed  them  linger- 
ingly,  while  heavy  tears  rolled  slowly  down  the 
length  of  his  pain-racked  face.  When  the 
startled  children  questioned  him,  the  great  man 
answered  sorrowfully: 

^'I  am  weeping,  my  children,  because  I  am 
so  soon  to  leave  you." 

It  was  during  the  afternoon  of  Wednesday, 
September  27,  that  the  Cure  of  Garches  was 
summoned  to  the  side  of  Pasteur,  whose  end 
was  felt  to  be  very  near.  He  received  extreme 
unction,  after  having  made  confession  to  R.  P. 
Boulanger,  of  the  Dominican  order.  He  died 
the  following  morning  at  twenty  minutes  to 
five  after  a  brief  agony. 

It  was  a  universal  calamity.  Telegrams 
poured  into  the  Institute,  and  there  is  one  of 
them  which  must  be  cited  in  full,  and  which 
came  from  the  establishment  in  Berlin  directed 
by  Dr.  Koch,  who  had  so  often  had  occasion 
to  combat  him : 

"Profoundly  moved  by  the  loss  which  is  uni- 


THE   LAST   DAYS  '  211 

versally  felt,  and  which  the  Pasteur  Institute 
has  just  sustained  in  the  person  of  its  gifted 
founder,  the  Berlin  Institute  of  Infectious  Dis- 
eases expresses  its  heartfelt  participation  in  the 
general  sorrow." 

The  Government  decided  that  the  obsequies 
of  Louis  Pasteur  should  be  national  and  that 
the  State  should  bear  the  expense.  They  were 
conducted  with  full  ofi&cial  pomp  and  before 
an  immense  public  gathering,  on  October  5th, 
1895.  The  religious  ceremony,  presided  over  by 
Monseigneur  Richard,  was  conducted  at  Notre- 
Dame,  in  the  presence  of  the  President  of  the 
Republic,  Felix  Faure,  the  Grand  Duke  Con- 
stantine  of  Russia,  and  Prince  Nicholas  of 
Greece.  At  its  conclusion  M.  Poincare  deliv- 
ered an  admirable  address  in  the  name  of  the 
Government  beside  the  bier,  where  it  rested 
before  the  threshold  of  Notre  Dame. 

"Science,"  he  said,  "will  never  weary.  Mes- 
sieurs, of  admiring  in  the  genius  of  Pasteur  the 
combined  force  of  a  creative  imagination  and 
the  most  rigorous  experimental  method. 


212  PASTEUR 

"He  had  sudden  inspirations,  which  bore  him 
on  towards  unexpected  discoveries;  he  had  in- 
stincts of  divination  which  pushed  him  forward 
along  unexplored  paths ;  he  had  swift,  headlong 
rushes  of  thought  that  overleaped  and  antici- 
pated the  establishment  of  the  truth,  prepared 
the  way  for  it,  made  its  attainment  more  rapid 
and  more  sure.  But  when  a  scientific  problem 
had  taken  shape  before  him,  in  one  of  those 
general  flashes  of  illumination,  he  never  con- 
sidered it  as  solved  until  he  had  questioned  all 
nature,  until  he  had  classified  or  eliminated  all 
of  the  facts,  until  he  had  forced  them,  each  and 
every  one,  to  give  him  an  answer. 

"He  was  careful  to  guard  against  any  philo- 
sophical prejudice  that  might  hamper  the  sin- 
cerity of  his  observations.  The  experimental 
method,  he  declared  in  his  address  at  the  time 
of  his  reception  at  the  Academie,  should  be  de- 
tached from  all  metaphysical  speculation,  and, 
while  claiming  for  his  conscience  the  right  to 
assert  loudly  its  spiritual  and  religious  convic- 
tions, he  claimed  no  less  energetically  all  the 


PASTEUR'S   TOMB 
It  is  in  the  Rue  Dutot,  beneath  the  principal  entrance  to  the  Pasteur 
Institute,  in  a  crypt  lined  with  marble,  that  one  of  the  most  glorious 
representatives  of  universal  science  has  found  his  last  resting  place. 


THE   LAST   DAYS  213 

prerogatives  of  liberty  on  behalf  of  science.  And 
it  was  really  the  unrestrained  curiosity  of  his 
searching  mind,  spurred  on  by  his  inventive 
powers,  and  seconded  by  his  scrupulous  re- 
search for  objective  truths,  that  guided  him 
through  the  long  and  brilliant  evolution  of  his 
scientific  labours.     .     .     . " 

"Happy  is  he,"  said  Pasteur;  "happy  is  he 
who  carries  within  him  his  own  ideal,  and  lives 
in  obedience  to  it."  Throughout  his  life  Pas- 
teur himself  lived  in  obedience  to  the  highest 
and  purest  of  ideals,  in  science  and  virtue  and 
charity.  All  his  thoughts  and  all  his  actions 
were  illumined  by  the  reflected  rays  of  that  in- 
ner flam^;  he  owed  his  greatness  to  his  sensi- 
bilities ;  and  posterity  will  assign  him  a  place  in 
the  radiant  line  of  apostles  of  goodness  and  of 
truth. 

The  body  of  Louis  Pasteur  was  interred  in 
the  Institute,  and  there  he  lies,  in  the  cold  and 
austere  crypt,  while  men  of  learning,  inspired 
by  his  genius,  continue  and  carry  towards  com- 


214  PASTEUR 

pletion  his  work  that  was  so  prolific  for  the  ad- 
vance of  science  and  for  the  good  of  humanity. 

The  illustrious  savant  was  one  of  the  greatest 
of  modern  heroes,  and  we  may  well  conclude 
with  the  words  of  Emile  Duclaux: 

"There  is  no  other  example  in  science  of  a 
savant  who  has  been  privileged  to  see  the  do- 
main which  he  discovered  expand  and  bear  fruit 
to  such  an  extent.  Perhaps  Lavoisier,  whose 
name  comes  naturally  to  mind  in  speaking  of 
Pasteur,  might  have  had  the  joy  of  seeing  him- 
self equally  great,  if  he  had  been  able  to  keep 
on  to  the  end  of  his  career.  The  only  exact 
comparison  is  that  of  a  Napoleon  dying  tri- 
umphant in  the  midst  of  Europe  permanently 
conquered  and  pacified.  Even  that  vision,  mag- 
nificent as  it  is,  is  incomplete:  Pasteur  con- 
quered the  world,  yet  his  glory  did  not  cost  a 
single  tear/' 

END 


BRIEF  INDEX 

OF  THE  PRINCIPAL  NAMES  CITED 

BASTIAN,  Henry  Charlton,  English  physician, 
born  at  Truro,  Cornwall,  April  26,  1837.  Author 
of  numerous  works,  among  others,  The  Modes  of 
Origin  of  Lowest  Organisms;  The  Beginnings  of 
Life;  Clinical  Lectures  on  the  Common  Forms  of 
Paralysis  from  Brain  Disease. 

BERT,  Paul,  French  physiologist  and  statesman, 
born  at  Auxerre  in  1833,  died  at  Hanoi  in  1886. 

BIOT,  Jean  Baptiste,  astronomer,  mathematician, 
physicist,  and  chemist,  born  at  Paris  in  1774, 
died  at  Paris  in  1862.  He  participated  in  efforts 
undertaken  in  Spain  to  measure  the  meridian, 
and  has  left  important  writings  on  polarisation, 
stellar  astronomy,  etc. 

BUFFON,  Georges  Louis  Leclerc,  Comte  de, 
naturalist  and  one  of  the  greatest  of  French 
writers,  born  at  Montbard,  Cote-d'Or,  in  1707, 
died  at  Paris  in  1788.  Author  of  a  Natural  His- 
tory and  a  Treatise  on  the  Epochs  of  Nature. 
Member  of  the  Academic  Frangaise. 

215 


216  PASTEUR 

DAGUERRE,  Louise  Jacques  Mende,  inventor  of 
the  diorama  and  one  of  the  inventors  of  pho- 
tography, born  at  Cormeilles-en-Parisis  (Seine- 
et-Oise)  in  1789,  died  at  Brj^-sur-Marne  in  1851. 

DAVAINE,  Casimir  Joseph,  French  physician, 
born  at  Saint-Amand-les-Eaux  in  1812,  died  at 
Garches  in  1882,  author  of  remarkable  treatises 
on  experimental  physiology.  His  discovery,  in 
1850,  of  the  bacteria  of  anthrax  makes  him  the 
true  precursor  of  Pasteur. 

DELAFOSSE,  Gabriel,  French  mineralogist,  born 
at  Saint-Quentin  in  1796,  died  at  Paris  in  1878. 
He  occupied  the  chair  of  mineralogy  in  the  Paris 
Faculty  of  Sciences  and  in  the  Ecole  Normale, 
and  in  1857  was  elected  member  of  the  Academy 
of  Sciences.  Delafosse  devoted  himself  in  a  very 
special  way  to  the  study  of  crystalography. 

DUMAS,  Jean  Baptiste,  chemist,  born  at  Alais 
(Gard)  in  1800,  died  at  Cannes  in  1884.  He  was 
elected  member  of  the  Academy  of  Sciences  in 
1832,  then  professor  in  the  Faculty  of  Sciences 
of  Paris,  the  Faculty  of  Medicine  and  the  Col- 
lege de  France.  He  was  the  founder  of  the  Nor- 
mal School  of  Arts  and  Sciences.  Dumas  was 
a  member  of  the  Institute,  permanent  secretary 
of  the  Academy  of  Sciences,  and  member  of  the 
Academie  Fran^aise  (1875).    He  was  the  author 


INDEX  217 

of  a  great  Treatise  on  Chemistry  applied  to  the 
Arts. 

FREMY,  Edmond,  French  chemist,  born  at  Ver- 
sailles in  1814,  died  at  Paris  in  1894.  Author  of 
remarkable  researches  relating  to  the  fatty  acids. 

GUERIN,  Jules  Rene,  French  surgeon,  born  at 
Boussu,  Belgium,  in  1801,  died  at  Hyeres  in  1886. 

HAUY,  Abbe  Rene  Just,  French  mineralogist, 
born  at  Saint-Just,  Oise,  in  1743,  died  at  Paris  in 
1822.    He  founded  the  science  of  crystalography. 

HELMHOLTZ,  Hermann  von,  German  physiolo- 
gist and  physicist,  born  at  Potsdam  in  1821,  died 
at  Charlottenburg  in  1894.  Author  of  remarka- 
ble works  on  optics,  electricity  and  acoustics. 

HERSCHEL,  Sir  William,  celebrated  astronomer, 
born  in  Hanover  in  1738,  died  at  Slough,  near 
Windsor,  in  1822.  He  was  the  founder  of  the 
science  of  stellar  astronomy. 

JOLY,  Nicolas,  French  zoologist,  born  at  Toul 
July  11th,  1812.  Author  of  numerous  works,  in- 
cluding Researches  in  Regard  to  Silk  Worms  and 
Their  Diseases,  1858;  Researches  into  the  Origin, 
Germination  and  Fructification  of  Brewer's 
Yeast. 

KOCH,  Robert,  German  physician  and  microbiolo- 
gist, born  at  Klausthal,  Hanover,  in  1843.  He 
has  published  remarkable  researches  in  tubercu- 


218  PASTEUR 

losis,  the  bacilli  of  which  he  discovered  and  suc- 
ceeded in  cultivating. 

LAVOISIER,  Antoine  Laurent,  famous  French 
chemist,  born  at  Paris  in  1743,  died  in  Paris  in 
1794.  One  of  the  founders  of  modern  chemistry, 
on  the  basis  of  a  previously  unknown  law,  that 
of  the  conservation  of  matter:  "Nothing  is  lost, 
nothing  is  created.'^ 

LIEBIG,  Justus,  Baron  von,  German  chemist, 
born  at  Darmstadt  in  1803,  died  at  Munich  in 
1873.  He  was  one  of  the  first  to  apply  chemical 
analysis  to  the  phenomena  of  organic  life. 

LITTRE,  Maximilien  Paul  Emile,  French  philol- 
ogist and  philosopher  of  the  positivist  school, 
born  at  Paris  in  1801,  died  at  Paris  in  1881.  His 
principal  work  is  his  Dictionary  of  'the  French 
Language.  He  was  a  member  of  the  Academic 
Frangaise. 

MITSCHERLICH,  Eilhard,  German  chemist, 
born  at  Neuende  in  1794,  died  at  Schoeneberg  in 
1863.  He  was  the  discoverer  of  the  law  of 
isomorphism. 

NEEDHAM,  John  Tuberville,  English  physicist, 
born  at  London  in  1713,  died  at  Brussels  in  1781. 

NIEPCE,  Joseph  Nicephore,  French  chemist,  born 
at  Chalon-sur-Saone  in  1765,  died  in.  the  same 


INDEX  219 

town  in  1833.    With  Daguerre,  he  was  one  of  the 
inventors  of  photography. 

NISARD,  Jean  Marie  Napoleon  Desire,  French 
man  of  letters,  born  at  Chatillon-sur-Seine  in 
1806,  died  at  San  Remo  in  1883.  He  was  direc- 
tor of  the  Ecole  Normale  Superieure  and  member 
of  the  Academic  Frangaise. 

PARACELSUS  (his  real  name .  being  Philippus 
Aureolus  Theophrastus  Bombast  von  Hohen- 
heim),  a  celebrated  Swiss  physician  and  alchem- 
ist, born  at  Einsiedeln,  in  the  canton  of  Schwyz, 
December  11th,  1493,  died  at  Salzburg  September 
24th,  1541.  He  may  be  regarded  as  the  founder 
of  the  modern  doctrine  of  specifics. 

POUCHET,  Felix  Archimede,  French  naturalist, 
born  at  Rouen  in  1800,  died  in  that  same  city  in 
1872.  He  was  celebrated  for  his  controversies 
with  Pasteur  on  the  subject  of  spontaneous  gen- 
eration. 

QUATREFAGES,  Jean  Louis  Armand  de  Breau 
de,  French  naturalist  and  anthropologist,  born  at 
Berthezene,  Gard,  in  1810,  died  at  Paris  in  1892. 
He  defended  the  theory  of  the  unity  of  the  ori- 
gin of  man. 

REGNAULT,  Henri  Victor,  French  physicist  and 
chemist,  born  at  Aix-la-Chapelle  July  11th,  1810, 
died  at  Paris  January  19th,  1878. 


220  PASTEUR 

ROUX,  Pierre  Paul  Emile,  French  physician, 
born  at  Confolens,  Charente,  December  17th, 
1853.  Member  of  the  Academy  of  Medicine  arid 
the  Academy  of  Sciences.  Director  of  the  Pas- 
teur Institute. 

SCHULTZE,  Max  Johann  Sigismond,  German 
anatomist,  born  at  Freiburg-im-Breisgau  March 
15th,  1825,  died  at  Bonn  January  16th,  1874.  He 
was  appointed  professor  at  Bonn  in  1859,  and 
there  founded  an  important  anatomical  institute. 

SPALLANZANI,  Lazaro,  Italian  naturahst,  born 
at  Scandiano  in  1729,  died  at  Pavia  in  1799.  He 
was  the  author  of  important  works  upon  the  cir- 
culation of  the  blood,  the  digestion,  reproduction, 
and  microscopic  animals. 

THENARD,  Louis  Jacques,  Baron,  learned  French 
chemist,  collaborator  of  Gay-Lussac,  born  at  La 
Louptiere,  Aube,  in  1777,  died  at  Paris  in  1857. 
He  was  the  discoverer  of  hydrogen  peroxide, 
boron,  etc.  Pasteur  delivered  a  discourse  at  the 
unveiling  of  his  monument. 

TROUSSEAU,  Armand,  French  physician,  born  at 
Tours  in  1801,  died  at  Paris  in  1867.  He  was  au- 
thor of  a  Treatise  on  Therapeutics,  which  for  a 
long  time  remained  a  classic. 

TYNDALL,  John,  English  physicist,  born  at 
Leighlin  Bridge,  Ireland,  in  1820,  died  at  Hind 


I 


INDEX  221 

Head  in  1893.    Author  of  remarkable  works  upon 
heat  and  electricity. 

VAN  TIEGHEM,  Philippe  Edguard  Leon,  French 
botanist,  member  of  the  Institute,  born  at  Bail- 
leul,  Nord,  April  19th,  1839,  was  a  student  at  the 
Ecole  Normale  from  1858  to  1861,  and  later  be- 
came a  lecturer  in  the  same  school.  Member  of 
the  Academy  of  Sciences. 

VICAT,  Louis  Joseph,  French  engineer,  born  at 
Nevers,  March  31st,  1786,  died  at  Grenoble  April 
10th,  1861.  Author  of  memorable  works  on  hy- 
draulic limes  and  cements. 


PRINCIPAL  PUBLICATIONS,  ARTICLES, 

MONOGRAPHS,  ETC.,  OF  LOUIS 

PASTEUR 

1848  Notes  on  the  Crystallization  of  Sulphur. 

Researches    into    the    different    Modes    of 

grouping  in  Sulphate  of  Potash. 

Researches  in  Dimorphism. 

Memorandum  on  the  Relation  which  may 

exist  between  crystalline  Form  and  chemi- 
cal Composition  and  on  the  Cause  of  ro- 
tary Polarization. 

Researches  into  the  Relations  which  may  ex- 

ist between  crystalline  Form,  chemical 
Composition  and  the  Direction  of  the  ro- 
tary Power. 

Researches  into  the  Relations  which  may  ex- 

ist between  crystalline  Form,  chemical 
Composition  and  the  Direction  of  rotary 
Polarization  (2d  Memorandum) . 

1849  Researches  into  the  specific  Properties  of  the 

two  Acids  which  compose  racemic  Acid. 

■     223 


224  PASTEUR 

1850  New  Researches   into  the  Relations  which 

may  exist  between  crystalline  Form,  chem- 
ical Composition  and  the  Phenomenon  of 
rotary  Polarization. 

New  Researches   into  the  Relations  which 

may  exist  between  crystalline  Form,  chem- 
ical Composition  and  molecular  rotary 
Power. 

1851  Memorandum  upon  aspartic  and  malic  Acid. 

Regarding  a  Memorandum  relative  to  as- 

partic and  malic  Acid. 

1852  Observations    upon    artificial    Populin    and 

Salicin. 

New  Researches   into  the  Relations  which 

may  exist  between  crystalline  Form,  chem- 
ical Composition  and  the  molecular  rotary 
Phenomenon. 

1853  New  Facts  relating  to  the  History  of  racemic 

Acid  (M.  Kestner's  Letter  to  M.  Biot). 
Notes  on  the  Origin  of  racemic  Acid. 

Notes  on  Quinidine. 

New  Researches  into  the  Relations  which 

may  exist  between  crystalline  Form,  chem- 
ical Composition  and  the  molecular  rotary 
Phenomenon. 

Note  upon  Quinidine. 

Transformation    of   tartaric   Acid   into   ra- 

cemic Acid, 


PUBLICATIONS,    ETC.  225 

Researches  into  the  Alcaloids   of  the  Cin- 

chonas. 

Transformation  of  the  tartaric  Acids  into 

racemic  Acid.  Discovery  of  inactive  tar- 
taric Acid.  New  Method  of  separating 
racemic  Acid  into  right  and  left  tartaric 
Acid. 

1854  Regarding  Dimorphism. 

1855  Memorandum  upon  amylic  Alcohol. 

1856  Note  upon  Sugar  and  Milk. 

Isomorphism  between  isomeric  Bodies,  some 

active  and  others  inactive,  in  relation  to 
polarized  Light. 

Studies  regarding  the  Methods  of  Growth  of 

Crystals  and  the  Causes  of  their  Sec- 
ondary Forms. 

1857  Memorandum  upon  so-called  lactic  Fermen- 

tation. 

Memorandum  upon  alcoholic  Fermentation. 

1858  Upon  alcoholic  Fermentation. 

Memorandum  upon  the  Fermentation  of  tar- 

taric Acid. 

Constant  Production  of  Glycerine  in  alco- 

holic Fermentation. 

New  Researches  into  alcoholic  Fermentation. 

New  Facts  concerning  the  History  of  alco- 

holic Fermentation. 


226  PASTEUR 

1859  New  Facts  contributing  to  the  History  of 

lactic  Yeast. 

New  Facts  concerning  alcoholic  Fermenta- 

tion. 

New  Facts  relating  to  alcoholic  Fermenta- 

tion, Cellulose  and  the  fatty  Matters  in 
Yeast  formed  at  the  expense  of  Sugar. 

Note  upon  the  Remarks  Presented  by  M. 

Berthelot  at  the  last  Session  of  the  Acad- 
emy. 

Memorandum  upon  alcoholic  Fermentation. 

1860  Extract  from  the  Report  upon  the  Competi- 

tion for  the  Prize  in  experimental  Physi- 
ology for  the  year  1859.  Monthyon  Foun- 
dation. 

Experiments  relating  to  so-called  spontane- 

ous Generation. 

On  the  Origin  of  Ferments.     New  Experi- 

ments relating  to  so-called  spontaneous 
Generation. 

Note  on  so-called  alcoholic  Fermentation. 

Note  relating  to  the  Penicilium  Glaucum  and 

to  the  molecular  Dissymmetry  of  natural 
organic  Products. 

New  Experiments  relating  to  so-called  spon- 

taneous Generation. 

Researches  into  the  Mode  of  Nutrition  of 

the  Mucedinece. 


PUBLICATIONS,   ETC.  227 

1861  Continuation  of  a  previous  Communication 

relating  to  so-called  spontaneous  Genera- 
tion. 

The  Influence  of  Temperature  upon  the  Fer- 

tility of  Spores  of  the  Mucedinece. 

Infusorial    Animalcula    living   without    free 

oxygen  Gas  and  producing  Fermentations. 

Memorandum     upon     organic     Corpuscles 

which  exist  in  the  Atmosphere.  Examina- 
tion of  the  Doctrine  of  spontaneous  Gen- 
eration. 

New  Experiments  and  Views  regarding  the 

nature  of  Fermentations. 

Rectification  of  a  Passage  in  a  Note  pre- 

sented to  the  Academy  by  Messrs.  Joly 
and  Musset. 

1862  Studies  of  the  Mycoderms.    The  Role  played 

by  these  Plants  in  acetic  Fermentation. 

New  industrial  Process  for  the  Manufacture 

of  Vinegar. 

1863  New  Example  of  Fermentation  determined 

by  infusorial  Animalcula  which  can  live 
without  free  Oxygen  Gas  and  apart  from 
any  Contact  with  atmospheric  Air. 

Examination  of  the  Role  attributed  to  at- 

mospheric Oxygen  Gas  in  the  Destruction 
of  animal  and  vegetable  Matter  after 
Death. 


228  PASTEUR 

Note  on  the  Presence  of  acetic  Acid  among 

the  Products  of  alcoholic  Fermentation. 

Remarks  on  the  Subject  of  the  note  com- 

municated by  M.  Van  Thieghem  at  the 
last  Session  of  the  Academy. 

Note  relative  to  a  Communication  from  M. 

Bechamp  inserted  in  the  Secretary's  Re- 
port of  the  last  Session. 

Researches  in  Regard  to  Putrefaction. 

Note.    In  Response  to  critical  Observations 

presented  to  the  Academy  by  Messrs. 
Pouchet,  Joly  and  Musset,  at  the  Session 
on  the  21st  of  last  September. 

Remarks  on  the  Occasion  of   a  new  Note 

from  Messrs.  Joly  and  Musset  relative  to 
the  same  Question. 

Studies  on  Wines.     First  Part:     the  Influ- 

ence of  atmospheric  Oxygen  in  Vinifica- 
tion. 

Note  relative  to  the  Claims  of  Priority  raised 

by  M.  Bechamp,  in  Regard  to  my  Works 
on  Fermentations  and  so-called  spontane- 
ous Generation. 
1864    Notes  on  spontaneous  Generation. 

Studies  of  Wines.    Second  Part:  spontaneous 

Alterations  or  Maladies  of  Wines,  espe- 
cially in  the  Jura. 
■ Note  in  Response  to  the  Remarks  of  M. 


PUBLICATIONS,   ETC.  229 

Pouchet  relative  to  spontaneous  Genera- 
tion. 

Remarks  on  the  Occasion  of  a  Request  by- 

Messrs.  Pouchet,  Joly  and  Musset  to 
await  the  Return  of  the  warm  Season  be- 
fore repeating  their  Experiments  in 
Heterogenesis. 

Communication  from  M.  Pasteur  presenting 

the  first  Number  of  the  Annales  Scien- 
tifiques  de  VEcole  Normale,  which  was 
published  under  his  Direction. 

Remarks  on  the  Occasion  of  a  Memorandum 

by  Messrs.  Bussy  and  Buignet  on  the 
Changes  of  Temperature  produced  by  the 
Mixture  of  Liquids  produced  by  separate 
Cultures. 

1865  Report  upon  Experiments  relating  to  spon- 
taneous Generation. 

Practical  Process  for  preserving  and  improv- 

ing Wines. 

Note  on  the  Deposits  that  are  formed  in 

Wines. 

■ New   Observations   on  the   Subject   of   the 

preservation  of  Wines. 

Note  on  the  Occasion  of  a  Communication 

from  Messrs.  Leplat  and  Jaillard  con- 
cerning the  Disease  of  splenic  Apoplexy 
{sang  de  rate). 


230  PASTEUR 

Observations  on  the  Diseases  of  Silk-worms. 

Note  accompanying  the  Presentation   of  a 

Pamphlet  on  the  Preservation  of  Wines. 

Notes   on   the   Employment  of  Heat   as   a 

means  of  preserving  Wines. 
1866    New  Studies  on  the  Disease  of  Silk-worms. 

Observations  on  the  Subject  of  a  Note  by  M. 

Bechamp,  relative  to  the  Nature  of  the 
silk-worm  Disease. 

Observation  on  the  Subject  of  a  Note  by  M. 

Bechamp,  relative  to  the  Nature  of  the 
present  silk-worm  Disease. 

Observation  on  the  Subject  of  a  Note  by  M. 

Balbiani,  relative  to  the  silk-worm  Dis- 
ease. 

New  experimental  Studies  of  the  silk-worm 

Disease. 

1866  Remarks  on  the  Occasion  of  a  Note  by  M. 

Donne  regarding  spontaneous  Generation 
of  infusorial  Animalcula. 

Observations  on  the  Subject  of  a  Note  by  M. 

Pouchet  regarding  vital  Resistance. 

1867  Letter  to  M.  Dumas  on  the  Nature  of  Cor- 

puscles in  Silk-worms. 
^ Letter  to  M.  Dumas  on  the  Disease  of  Silk- 
worms. 

1868  Observations   relative   to   Experiments    de- 

scribed   in    a    Communication    from    M. 


PUBLICATIONS,   ETC.  231 

Chauveau  regarding  the  Nature  of  vaccine 
Virus. 

Letter   addressed  to  M.  Dumas,  regarding 

precocious  Cultures  of  silk-worm  eggs  of 
native  Stock  resulting  from  selective 
Breeding. 

Letter  to  M.  Dumas  on  the  Subject  of  the 

Disease  of  Silk-worms. 

Second  Letter  to   M.   Dumas.     Precocious 

Cultures  of  Eggs  of  native  Stock  resulting 
from  selective  Breeding. 

Note  on  the   silk-worm  Disease  popularly 

designated  by  the  Name  of  morts  blancs 
or  morts  flats. 

Report  by  M.  Pasteur  regarding  his  Com- 

mission in  1868  in  Relation  to  the  silk- 
worm Disease. 

Regarding  a  Method  of  determining,  through 

early  Experiments  on  silk-worm  Eggs, 
which  of  them  are  predisposed  to  the  Dis- 
ease of  morts  flats. 
1869  Letter  addressed  to  Marechal  Vaillant,  on 
the  good  Effect  of  cellular  Selection  in  the 
Culture  of  silk-worm  Eggs. 

Letter  to  M.   Dumas,  apropos  of  a  letter 

from  M.  Cornalia  on  the  proposed  Method 
of  regenerating  the  Breeds  of  Silk-worms. 

Result  of  Observations  made  upon  the  Dis- 


232  PASTEUR 

ease  of  morts  flats,  both  hereditary  and 
accidental. 

Observations  relating  to   a   previous  Com- 

munication by  M.  Raybaud-Lange,  on  the 
Disease  of  morts  flats  and  the  Method  of 
combatting  it.  Letter  to  Marechal  Vail- 
lant. 

Note  on  the  Selection  of  Cocoons  made  by 

Aid  of  the  Microscope  for  the  Purpose  of 
Regenerating  the  native  Breeds  of  Silk- 
worms. 

Result  of  two  small  Cultures  of  Silk-worms 

reared  from  Eggs  studied  by  M.  Pasteur. 

Note  on  the  Industry  of  silk-worm  Eggs  and 

on  the  Quality  of  native  Eggs,  on  the  Oc- 
casion of  a  Report  of  the  Silk  Commission 
of  Lyons. 

Of  the  Practice  of  heating,  for  the  Preserva- 

tion and  Amelioration  of  Wines. 

Note  on  the  Subject  of  a  Complaint  from 

M.  Paul  Thenard,  relating  to  the  Heating 
of  Wines. 

Note  relating  to  the  Communications  of  M. 

de  Vergnette-Lamotte  and  M.  P.  Thenard 
addressed  to  the  Academy  at  the  Meetings 
of  September  20  and  October  4. 

Reply  to  the  last  Note  of  M.  P.  Thenard 

regarding  the  Heating  of  Wines. 


PUBLICATIONS,   ETC.  233 

1870  Letter  to  Marechal  Vaillant  regarding  the 

Results  obtained  from  the  Culture  of 
French  Breeds  of  Silk-worms,  effected  by 
means  of  Eggs  obtained  by  a  Process  of 
Selection. 

1871  Note  on  a  Memorandum  by  M.  Liebig,  rela- 

tive to  fermentation. 

Reply  to  some  Remarks  by  M.  Fremy,  rela- 

tive to  the  preceding  Communication. 

Observations  apropos  of  a  Communication 

from  M.  Trecul  regarding  the  Origin  of 
lactic  and  alcoholic  Yeasts. 

Concerning  the  Nature  and  Origin  of  Fer- 

ments. Reply  to  a  Note  inserted  by  M. 
Fremy,  in  the  Report  of  tiie  Meeting  of 
January  15,  1872. 

Observations  on  the  Subject  of  Communica- 

tions from  M.  Fremy. 

New  Observations  on  the  Subject  of  Com- 

munications from  M.  Fremy. 

Observations    relative    to    Communications 

from  M.  de  Vergnette-Lamotte,  on  the 
Preservation  of  Wines. 

Reply  to  the  Communication  from  M.  de 

Vergnette-Lamotte,  concerning  the  Preser- 
vation of  Wines, 
r— — ■    Concerning    the     Amelioration     of    Wines 
through  the  Application  of  Heat. 


234  PASTEUR 

New  Experiments  to  prove  that  the  Germ  of 

the  Yeast  which  produces  Wine  comes 
from  the  Grapes  themselves. 

Reply  to  a  Communication  by  M.  Fremy 

concerning  the  Generation  of  Ferments. 

New  Facts  leading  to  a  better  Understanding 

of  the  Theory  of  Fermentations  properly 
so  called. 

Reply  of  M.  Pasteur  to  M.  Fremy. 

Observations  on  the  Subject  of  two  Notes 

which  M.  Fremy  had  published  in  the  Re- 
port of  the  Meeting  of  October  7th. 

Reply  to  a  Note  by  M.  Trecul,  regarding  the 

Origin  of  Yeasts. 

Note  on  the  Production  of  Alcohol  in  Fruit. 

Note   in    Regard   to    an   Assertion   by    M. 

Fremy  published  in  the  last  Report. 

Reply  to  new  verbal  Observations  by  M. 

Fremy.  M.  Pasteur  demands  that  a  Com- 
mittee be  appointed  to  pass  upon  the  Ex- 
actitude of  the  Experiments  mentioned 
during  the  Discussion. 

Reply  to  Remarks  by  M.  Trecul,  in  regard 

to  the  Origin  of  lactic  and  alcoholic 
Yeasts. 

Observations  on  the  Subject  of  three  Notes 

communicated  by  Messrs.  Bechamp  and 
Estor  at  the  last  Meeting. 


PUBLICATIONS,   ETC.  235 

1873  Note  relating  to  a  Report  from  M.  Cornalier 

regarding  the  Culture  of  Silk-worms  dur- 
ing 1872. 

A  Study  of  Beer;  a  new  Process  to  render  it 

unalterable. 

Observations  in  Regard  to  a  Communication 

from  M.  Vignon,  entitled:  "The  rotary 
Power  in  Mannite." 

Reply  to  a  Note  on  the  Origin  of  Brewer's 

Yeast,  read  by  M.  Trecul  at  the  Meeting 
of  December  8th,  1873. 

Reply  to  M.  Trecul  regarding  the  Origin  of 

Brewer's  Yeast. 

New  Reply  to  M,  Trecul  regarding  the  Ori- 

gin of  Brewer's  Yeast. 

1874  Observations  relating  to  a  Communication 

from  Messrs.  A.  Gosselin  and  A.  Robin,  in 
Regard  to  ammoniacal  Urine. 

On  the  Production  of  Yeast  in  a  sweetened 

mineral  Medium. 

Some  Observations  in  Regard  to  the  natural 

Dissymmetric  Forces. 

Observations  apropos  of  a  Communication 

from  M.  Dumas  regarding  the  Interest 
that  there  might  be  in  examining  the  Ef- 
fect produced  upon  Grape  Vines  by  the 
Coexistence  of  Phylloxera  and  of  My- 
celium shown  to  have  occurred  at  Cully. 


236  PASTEUR 

1875  New  Observations  upon  alcoholic  Fermenta- 

tion. 

Concerning  a  new  Distinction  between  natu- 

ral organic  Products  and  artificial  organic 
Products. 

Observations    on    the    Origin    of    Sugar    in 

Plants. 

Notes  on  the  cellular  Method  of  Cultivating 

silk-worm  Eggs. 

Note    and    Fermentation    apropos   of   some 

Criticisms  made  by  Doctors  Brefeld  and 
Traube. 

Concerning  the  Origin  of  organic  Ferments, 

apropos  of  two  Communications  from  M. 
Fremy  and  Mr.  Tyndall. 

1876  Verbal  Observations  apropos  of  a  Communi- 

cation from  M.  Boussingault  regarding  the 
Growth  and  Development  of  Indian  Corn. 

Concerning  the  Fermentation  of  Urine. 

Reply  to  Observations  by  M.  Berthelot,  in 

Regard  to  the  Theory  of  Fermentations. 

Note  on  the  Subject  of  a  Communication 

from  M.  Sace,  entitled:  Breadmaking  in 
the  United  States  and  the  Properties  of 
Hops  as  a  Ferment. 

Note  on  the  Fermentation  of  Fruits,  and  on 

the  Nature  of  the  Germs  of  alcoholic 
Yeasts. 


PUBLICATIONS,   ETC.  237 

Note  on  the  Subject  of  a   Communication 

made  by  M.  During,  regarding  the  cellu- 
losic  Fermentation  of  Sugar-cane. 
1877    Note  on  the  Alteration  of  Urine,  apropos  of 
a  Communication  from  Dr.  Bastian,   of 
London. 

Reply  to   a  Note  from  M.  Fremy  on  the 

ultra-cellular  Generation  of  alcoholic  Fer- 
ment. 

On  the  Alteration  of  Urine,  apropos  of  re- 

cent Communications  from  Doctor  Bas- 
tian. 

Verbal  Observations  on  the  Occasion  of  a 

Communication  from  M.  Bouillant  in  Re- 
gard to  typhoid  Fever. 

Concerning  the  Fermentation  of  Urine.    Re- 

ply to  Dr.  Bastian. 

Reply  to  Dr.   Bastian,   regarding  Bacteria 

Germs    held    in    Suspension    in    the    At- 
mosphere and  in  Water. 

Concerning  the  Preservation  of  Food. 

Concerning  the  Fermentation  of  Urine.    Re- 

ply to  Dr.  Bastian. 

Note  on  the  Subject  of  a  recent  Conmiuni- 

cation  from  M.  Woddell,  concerning  the 
Advantages  that  would  result  from  substi- 
tuting Cinchonidine  for  Quinine. 
. A  Study  of  the  Disease  of  Anthrax. 


238  PASTEUR 

Remarks  on  a  Communication  from  M.  Ray- 

nard. 

Note  on  Anthrax  and  Septicemia. 

Anthrax  and  Septicemia. 

Note  on  the  Subject  of  Dr.  Bastian's  Experi- 

ment in  regard  to  Urine  neutralized  by- 
Potash. 
1878    Reply  to  some  Remarks  by  M.  Trecul  on  the 
Origin  of  alcoholic  Yeasts. 

The  Theory  of  Germs  and  its  Application  to 

Medicine  and  to  Surgery. 

Observations  on  the  memorandum  by  Mr. 

Gunning,  entitled:    Concerning  Anaerobio- 
sis  of  Micro-organisms. 
'. Concerning  Anthrax  in  Poultry,  in  Collabo- 
ration with  Messrs.  Joubert  and  Cham- 
berland. 

Last  Experiments  of  Claude  Bernard.    Alco- 

holic Fermentation.     Note  on  the  Theory 
of  Fermentation. 

• New  Communication  on  the  Subject  of  Notes 

on  alcoholic  Fermentation,  found  among 
the  Papers  of  Claude  Bernard. 

Critical  Examination  of  a  posthumous  Paper 

by  Claude  Bernard  on  alcoholic  Fermen- 
tation. 

Reply  to  M.  Berthelot,  relating  to  alcoholic 

Fermentation. 


PUBLICATIONS,    ETC.  239 

Reply  to  the  Observations  of  M.  Trecul  rela- 

tive to  Fermentation. 

1879  Observations  relative  to  a  Note  by  M.  Tre- 

cul, on  the  Subject  of  lower  Organisms. 

Second  Reply  to  M.  Berthelot. 

Reply  to  Notes  by  M.  Trecul,  dated  Decem- 

ber 30  and  January  30. 

Observations  on  the  Reply  by  M.  Trecul. 

Third  Reply  to  M.  Berthelot. 

Fermentations.      Verbal    Observations    ad- 

dressed to  M.  Trecul. 

Fourth  Reply  to  M.  Berthelot. 

Remarks  on  the  Occasion  of  a  Communica- 

tion from  M.  Feltz  in  Regard  to  a  Lep- 
tothrix  found  in  the  Blood  of  a  Woman 
suffering  from  acute  puerperal  Fever. 

Remarks  on  the  Occasion  of  a  Communica- 

tion from  M.  Feltz  concerning  microscopic 
Organisms, 

Verbal  Observations  apropos  of  a  Communi- 

cation from  Messrs.  Ed.  and  H.  Becquerel, 
as  to  the  Degree  of  Cold  which  may  be 
endured  by  the  Bacteria  of  Anthrax  and 
by  other  microscopic  Organisms  without 
their  losing  their  Virulence. 

1880  Concerning  virulent  Diseases,  and,  more  par- 

ticularly, the  Disease  popularly  known  as 
chicken  Cholera, 


240  PASTEUR 

Remarks  on  the  Occasion  of  a  Note  from  M. 

Rommier,  relating  to  the  toxic  Influence 
which  Mycelium  in  the  Roots  of  the 
Grape-vine  exerts  upon  Phylloxera. 

Reply  to  M.  Blanchard  on  the  Occasion  of 

Observations  on  a  Note  by  M.  Romier 
concerning  the  toxic  Influence  which  My- 
celium of  the  Roots  of  the  Grape-vine  ex- 
erts upon  Phylloxera. 

Concerning  Chicken  Cholera;  Studies  of  the 

Conditions  of  Non-recurrence  of  the  Dis- 
ease and  certain  other  Characteristics. 

Concerning  Chicken  Cholera;  Studies  of  the 

Conditions  of  Non-recurrence  of  the  Dis- 
ease and  certain  other  Characteristics. 

Concerning  the  Extension  of  the  Theory  of 

Germs  and  the  Etiology  of  certain  com- 
mon Maladies. 

Concerning  the  Etiology  of  Anthrax. 

Letter  to  M.  Dumas.     Experiments  tending 

to  prove  that  Poultry  vaccinated  for 
Chicken  Cholera  are  immune  from  An- 
thrax. 

Letter  to  M.  Dumas,  regarding  the  Etiology 

of  Diseases  of  the  anthrax  Order  (in  col- 
laboration with  M.  Chamberland). 

; Concerning  the  Attenuation  of  the  Virus  of 

Chicken  Cholera. 


PUBLICATIONS,    ETC.  241 

New    Observations    on    the    Etiology    and 

Prophylaxis  of  Anthrax. 

On  the  Length  of  Life  of  the  anthrax  Germs 

and  their  Persistence  in  cultivated  Ground. 

Concerning  the  Attenuation  of  Viruses  and 

their  Return  to  Virulence. 
■■ Regarding  the  Possibility  of  rendering  Sheep 

immune  from  Anthrax  by  the  Method  of 

Preventive  Inoculation. 
■ The  Vaccine  of  Anthrax. 

Concerning  Hydrophobia. 

Concerning  Vaccination  against  Anthrax. 

Observation  apropos  of  a  Note  from  Messrs. 

Arloing,  Cornevin  and  Thomas,  regarding 
the  Cause  of  the  Immunity  of  Adults  of 
the  bovine  Species  from  Anthrax. 

1882  Concerning  Rouget  or  the  "red  Disease"  of 

Swine. 

New  Facts  helpful  to  an  Understanding  of 

Hydrophobia. 

Statistics  on  the  Subject  of  Vaccination  as 

a  Preventive  against  Anthrax,  based  upon 
eighty-five  thousand  Animals. 

1883  Concerning  Vaccination  against  Anthrax. 

The  veterinary  Commission  ff  Turin. 

Telegraphic  Despatch  addressed  to  M.  Du- 

mas. 

Vaccination    of   Swine    against   Rouget   by 


242  PASTEUR 

Means  of  an  Attenuation  of  the  deadly 
Virus  of  tliat  Disease. 
1884    New  Communication  in  regard  to  Hydro- 
phobia. 

Concerning  Hydrophobia. 

Observations  in  Regard  to  a  Note  by  M. 

Duclaux,  relating  to  Germination  in  a  Soil 
rich  in  organic  Matter  but  exempt  from 
Microbes. 

Method   for  preventing  Hydrophobia   after 

the  Patient  has  been  bitten. 

Reply    to    Remarks    by    Messrs.    Vulpian, 

Bouley  and  Larrey. 

1886  Results  of  the  Application  of  the  Method  of 

preventing  Hydrophobia  after  the  Patient 
has  been  bitten. 

Reply  to  Observations  by  the  President  and 

by  M.  Vulpian  apropos  of  the  preceding 
Communication. 

Supplementary  Note  on  the  Results  of  the 

Application  of  the  Method  of  Prophylaxis 
of  Hydrophobia  after  having  been  bitten. 

Observations  relating  to  a  Communication 

by  M.  Picetti  regarding  a  new  Species  of 
Asparigine. 

New  communication  regarding  Hydrophobia. 

1887  Statistical    Summary    of   the   Persons   who 

have  been  treated  at  the  Pasteur  Institute 


PUBLICATIONS,   ETC.  243 

after  having  been  bitten  by  Animals  that 
either  had  hydrophobia  or  were  suspected 
of  having  it. 

Note  accompanying  the  Presentation  of  the 

Report  of  the  English  Commission  on  Hy- 
drophobia. 

1888  Concerning  the  first  Volume  of  Annals  of  the 

Pasteur  Institute,  and  more  particularly 
a  Memorandum  by  Messrs.  Roux  and 
Chamberland,  entitled:  Immunity  from 
Septicemia,  conferred  by  soluble  Sub- 
stances. 

Remarks  relating  to  a  Communication  from 

M.  Gamaleia  concerning  preventive  Vac- 
cination against  Asiatic  Cholera. 

1889  Concerning  the  Method  of  Prophylaxis  of 

Hydrophobia  after  the  Patient  has  been 
bitten. 


DATE  DUE 

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